We were discussing the acronym LGBT today - Ken, Patrick Smyth and I - and it was put forth that "LGBT" should be some kind of sandwich. But what would it have in it?
Lettuce
Gorgonzola
Barbecue Chicken
and Tomato?
or
Lamb fries
Guts
Brains
and Tom Basinger?
I'm interested to hear.
Also, we studied Voyage today in Contemporary British Drama, which made me get out my Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard last night and read up on his politics. My Companion was published in 2001 - before Voyage - so it wasn't much help finding material relevant to the play, but it re-introduced me to all of the reasons that I like Tom Stoppard. Beyond the wordplay and the prismatic structuring (a term used often by Wendy in class), Stoppard refuses to provide a singular voice or message in any of his shows, because a definitive answer would stop, or at least oppose, an individual's questioning abilities. Larger over-arching movements - like the post-modern movement he is so often shunted into - are, as one essayist described it, "countries" that he moves through: he speaks the language but is only ever a periphery member, never a citizen. Becoming a citizen would give his shows a voice, they'd suffocate his ability to toy with an idea.
And beyond that, the "never a citizen" bit is always interesting, considering his relation to Vaclav Havel and the Czech revolution from the USSR. He actually really got involved in it - USSR agents stole a petition he was taking back from Prague for Amnesty International!
And this isn't hero-worship, by far. The real Mr. Stoppard would probably hate talking to me and I've accepted that we'll probably never bump into each other. It's more that I've been reading his work for years, now, and I always come back to his plays understanding more and more. It's a neat little phenomenon, that.
Cheers, Mr. Stoppard.
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Teeny Todd
For your viewing pleasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujdlUNM_QqI
We discussed this in Music and Theatre. That's right, we discussed THIS in Music and Theatre. I heart that class. It features "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" from Company.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujdlUNM_QqI
We discussed this in Music and Theatre. That's right, we discussed THIS in Music and Theatre. I heart that class. It features "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" from Company.
Monday, 3 March 2008
Level Up!
This is the tale of a sidequest:
First step, rally funds. This was tricky, because the exchange rate is never pretty, but I managed to get together some pounds to head out to Tesco with.
Next, at Tesco, I got to run around and select from whatever was leftover. It was six in the evening, you see, and the large parade of Monday shoppers had come and gone. It turned out that I was missing a green pepper, tabasco sauce, worchestire sauce, french onion soup, and red pepper - I think that was it. But all other gumbo ingredients were purchased, and some were finagled. The only sausage they had there were British, breakfast, cumberland sausages, which was not what I needed. The only chorizzo they had there came in thin slices! So, I bought some cumberland sausages and made due. But, I did get two secret bonus items!
Extra Virgin Olive Oil - why settle for less when the oldest in the world drinks two glasses of it a day? It's supposed to work wonders for almost any and everything in your body
Quinoa: (keen-wah, like Quina!) a super-food that Clay von Carlowitz got me on to. It was tucked back amongst other healthy foods at Tesco, and I checked the bag out. It can be substituted in for pasta or rice...hmm... Aquired Quinoa! ::Zelda item song::
Next, loaded with groceries, I began to return home, but made one final stop at the Co-op to look for a green pepper, and there it was! Aquired Green Pepper! ::Zelda item song::
Alas, when I got back, I got back late, and had to go make buckeyes with Ken, which was an amusing and rewarding experience in its own, but a complete and utter side-quest to my already important side-quest of making gumbo! I got to eat some though, so it was all good - you throw a buckeye in front of a roving Griffin, and he'll stop to eat it. It works much better than sylkis greens or kupo nuts.
But, once they were finished, and even though it was 11 p.m., I went about making my chicken-sausage gumbo. At first I thought I had too many vegetables, but then a sauteed them, and they shrunk. Then I had to deal with the cumberland sausages, which aren't meant to be cut up before they're cooked so they kind of squirted around. I managed it. Then there was cooking chicken, and I'm a huge freak about salminella, and how I don't want to get it, so that was interesting. And I almost set off the fire alarm with all the smoke in the kitchen, so once all the ingredients were cooked I stopped and waited for probably 5 minutes and just vented the kitchen.
Then came the making gravy from powder (because NO OTHER GRAVY EXISTS IN ENGLAND), and straining out all the little chunky bits that didn't want to disolve. Then I split the soup contents into two pots cause there was too much, so I had to halve everything I was doing. There was this awkward phase where I was putting a little gravy and then a little cream of mushroom soup for the broth, then stiring. And it was all working, until I put the soup in first, and when I went to strain the gravy chunks, I left the strainer on top of the just-plopped-in soup, so I had this gravy-soupy mass stuck to the bottom of the strainer, it was all quite amusing. Then stuff started sticking to the bottom of the pan, it was crazy.
Then I cooked the quinoa. An interesting experience, because quinoa, when it's cooked, looks like this. It's crazy! It has naturally occuring swirls in every bite! And it fills you up right quick, especially when served with chicken-sausage gumbo on top of it, which turned out to be AMAZING.
And I know this sounds absurd, but the sheer act of cooking in the kitchen for probably something like 3 hours, followed by the discovery of quinoa being good, followed by the even better discovery of the gumbo being good, has really made my, well, not life, but week, at least. I don't often get things right - I get things close enough to good, or acceptable, or something, but there's aren't a lot that I can claim to have done outrightly right. This gumbo was right, because it was tasty. And I'm kind of ecstatic about it.
Level up!
First step, rally funds. This was tricky, because the exchange rate is never pretty, but I managed to get together some pounds to head out to Tesco with.
Next, at Tesco, I got to run around and select from whatever was leftover. It was six in the evening, you see, and the large parade of Monday shoppers had come and gone. It turned out that I was missing a green pepper, tabasco sauce, worchestire sauce, french onion soup, and red pepper - I think that was it. But all other gumbo ingredients were purchased, and some were finagled. The only sausage they had there were British, breakfast, cumberland sausages, which was not what I needed. The only chorizzo they had there came in thin slices! So, I bought some cumberland sausages and made due. But, I did get two secret bonus items!
Extra Virgin Olive Oil - why settle for less when the oldest in the world drinks two glasses of it a day? It's supposed to work wonders for almost any and everything in your body
Quinoa: (keen-wah, like Quina!) a super-food that Clay von Carlowitz got me on to. It was tucked back amongst other healthy foods at Tesco, and I checked the bag out. It can be substituted in for pasta or rice...hmm... Aquired Quinoa! ::Zelda item song::
Next, loaded with groceries, I began to return home, but made one final stop at the Co-op to look for a green pepper, and there it was! Aquired Green Pepper! ::Zelda item song::
Alas, when I got back, I got back late, and had to go make buckeyes with Ken, which was an amusing and rewarding experience in its own, but a complete and utter side-quest to my already important side-quest of making gumbo! I got to eat some though, so it was all good - you throw a buckeye in front of a roving Griffin, and he'll stop to eat it. It works much better than sylkis greens or kupo nuts.
But, once they were finished, and even though it was 11 p.m., I went about making my chicken-sausage gumbo. At first I thought I had too many vegetables, but then a sauteed them, and they shrunk. Then I had to deal with the cumberland sausages, which aren't meant to be cut up before they're cooked so they kind of squirted around. I managed it. Then there was cooking chicken, and I'm a huge freak about salminella, and how I don't want to get it, so that was interesting. And I almost set off the fire alarm with all the smoke in the kitchen, so once all the ingredients were cooked I stopped and waited for probably 5 minutes and just vented the kitchen.
Then came the making gravy from powder (because NO OTHER GRAVY EXISTS IN ENGLAND), and straining out all the little chunky bits that didn't want to disolve. Then I split the soup contents into two pots cause there was too much, so I had to halve everything I was doing. There was this awkward phase where I was putting a little gravy and then a little cream of mushroom soup for the broth, then stiring. And it was all working, until I put the soup in first, and when I went to strain the gravy chunks, I left the strainer on top of the just-plopped-in soup, so I had this gravy-soupy mass stuck to the bottom of the strainer, it was all quite amusing. Then stuff started sticking to the bottom of the pan, it was crazy.
Then I cooked the quinoa. An interesting experience, because quinoa, when it's cooked, looks like this. It's crazy! It has naturally occuring swirls in every bite! And it fills you up right quick, especially when served with chicken-sausage gumbo on top of it, which turned out to be AMAZING.
And I know this sounds absurd, but the sheer act of cooking in the kitchen for probably something like 3 hours, followed by the discovery of quinoa being good, followed by the even better discovery of the gumbo being good, has really made my, well, not life, but week, at least. I don't often get things right - I get things close enough to good, or acceptable, or something, but there's aren't a lot that I can claim to have done outrightly right. This gumbo was right, because it was tasty. And I'm kind of ecstatic about it.
Level up!
Utopian Brain Gumbo
I have three adventures planned for today:
Firstly: I have emailed my dad and procured the tasty, tasty recepie for his Chicken Sausage Gumbo, which I intend to make on Wednesday, when all us Americans gather round with all those French people and all those people of other nationalities and make dinner. I have my shopping list, and so there are two sub quests here. First, I, like Quina the Blue Mage, must go and procure all the tasty ingredients, although, unlike Quina, I have a definite gender and do not fight using a fork. Then, once ingredients are found (some optional ingredients, like Okra, will probably involve me completing some kind of side quest, dressing up in drag a la FFVII, or some such business), I get to play Frankenstein with them and experiment until I finally get something resembling gumbo out of them. It'll be a fun time tonight.
Secondly: I get to read Voyage, the first part of The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard. It'll be an adventure.
Thirdly: An email just went out from the neuroscience department - I signed up in the beginning of the year as a volunteer in science experiments - and they want people who are interested in wearing a tiny camera for a few days, and then later are shown some images that it took while under an MRI. And if you bring a blank CD, you get to keep your brain pictures! And you get £15! I think I'm doing it, I just need to check my schedule. Meaning, that on the days that I'm wearing this camera, I need to be having magical amazing adventures so that I can remember them. They specifically ask to have you doing something rather than just sitting in your room. A call to adventure!
It'll be fun.
Firstly: I have emailed my dad and procured the tasty, tasty recepie for his Chicken Sausage Gumbo, which I intend to make on Wednesday, when all us Americans gather round with all those French people and all those people of other nationalities and make dinner. I have my shopping list, and so there are two sub quests here. First, I, like Quina the Blue Mage, must go and procure all the tasty ingredients, although, unlike Quina, I have a definite gender and do not fight using a fork. Then, once ingredients are found (some optional ingredients, like Okra, will probably involve me completing some kind of side quest, dressing up in drag a la FFVII, or some such business), I get to play Frankenstein with them and experiment until I finally get something resembling gumbo out of them. It'll be a fun time tonight.
Secondly: I get to read Voyage, the first part of The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard. It'll be an adventure.
Thirdly: An email just went out from the neuroscience department - I signed up in the beginning of the year as a volunteer in science experiments - and they want people who are interested in wearing a tiny camera for a few days, and then later are shown some images that it took while under an MRI. And if you bring a blank CD, you get to keep your brain pictures! And you get £15! I think I'm doing it, I just need to check my schedule. Meaning, that on the days that I'm wearing this camera, I need to be having magical amazing adventures so that I can remember them. They specifically ask to have you doing something rather than just sitting in your room. A call to adventure!
It'll be fun.
Sunday, 2 March 2008
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
So I've got a computer with a keyboard that sounds like a typewriter, which has lightened my mood immeasurably for this post.
Dateline: 2 March 2008. University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom. Stop
Given departure 26 June 2008 - Hildesheim - the suggested options are put forth for peer review. Stop
One: Write. Stop
Two: Meditation, research necessary, but most likely a good cure for the "long dark night of the soul." Stop
Three: More Roleplaying Games. Proved useful after first semester, why stop a good thing? Stop
Four: Long walks. Worked for C.S. Lewis, and also mom. Stop
Five: Travel. Re: expensive; limit wanderings to nearby, select specific destinations for distant travel. Stop
Six: Fix computer, alt. : buy a CD player - music is essential. Stop
Seven: Cream Tea. Stop
Eight: Puppies. Stop
Nine: Personal reading, outside of class reading and thesis reading. Stop
Ten: Write worthwhile blog reports of life in England. Stop
Normal coverage, sans crisis, will resume momentarily. Most likely tomorrow. Stop
Dateline: 2 March 2008. University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom. Stop
Given departure 26 June 2008 - Hildesheim - the suggested options are put forth for peer review. Stop
One: Write. Stop
Two: Meditation, research necessary, but most likely a good cure for the "long dark night of the soul." Stop
Three: More Roleplaying Games. Proved useful after first semester, why stop a good thing? Stop
Four: Long walks. Worked for C.S. Lewis, and also mom. Stop
Five: Travel. Re: expensive; limit wanderings to nearby, select specific destinations for distant travel. Stop
Six: Fix computer, alt. : buy a CD player - music is essential. Stop
Seven: Cream Tea. Stop
Eight: Puppies. Stop
Nine: Personal reading, outside of class reading and thesis reading. Stop
Ten: Write worthwhile blog reports of life in England. Stop
Normal coverage, sans crisis, will resume momentarily. Most likely tomorrow. Stop
Saturday, 1 March 2008
A Midterm Crisis
Sorry I'm in this funk, but it has laregly to do with England, so though it is an emotional response (which I said I wouldn't cover in this blog, only to break that rule pretty early on), it's firmly grounded in England.
I'm having a midterm crisis. Spring break is coming, which means that there's not much sand left in my England hourglass, but enough to get something done. There are two countries left in the UK that I will have left to visit once spring break is over, if all goes according to plan, those being Wales and North Ireland. There is the mythical abroad-relationship I have yet to find, since no one will touch me (no pun intended) due to my expiration date. I want full-blown "the one that got away" romance, darn it, but no, no one wants to get attached and then have to end it in a number of months. Forget that noise, I want to be rendered utterly contrite and heartbroken when I leave England, I don't want it to be just another matter of consequence. I want romance (dare I say, love?) that makes me forget that I have an expiration date.
Oooh, deep. Maybe I'll revise that so it's not quite so completely and utterly emo.
This being cynical thing really isn't as fun as all the cynics I know crack it up to be.
Anyway, the point is that now is the point of brainstorming solutions to the problem, the problem being that I want to have an amazingly rewarding end to my Kenyon-Exeter experience, but what does that entail? A complete piss-up with random British people? Various tickets to Wales, North Ireland, the Czech Republic, France, Spain, Kosovo (A NEW COUNTRY, IN OUR LIFETIME, A SECOND VELVET REVOLUTION), Italy, Iona (an island off the coast of Scotland, not really a country but more of a destination. And there's no airport...)? Is it trips to London? Is it non-stop research? Or playwriting? Or exploring?
I guess this is the old "I never saw Paris" situation, except I'm not dying. I just probably won't ever be back to Europe, is all. And I have these fluctuations between sprees of action followed by collapses of inaction, the first being: what on earth can I do? Let me think of everything; and the second being: maybe the essence of England is just being here, and maybe having tea. I think this is the same reason why my room is always a mess: OOH! I could color code my entire bookshelf...but I still need to fold my clothes...oh well, none of it will ever get done, but the idea is what counts.
More on this crisis as it develops. But in the meantime:
halp.
I'm having a midterm crisis. Spring break is coming, which means that there's not much sand left in my England hourglass, but enough to get something done. There are two countries left in the UK that I will have left to visit once spring break is over, if all goes according to plan, those being Wales and North Ireland. There is the mythical abroad-relationship I have yet to find, since no one will touch me (no pun intended) due to my expiration date. I want full-blown "the one that got away" romance, darn it, but no, no one wants to get attached and then have to end it in a number of months. Forget that noise, I want to be rendered utterly contrite and heartbroken when I leave England, I don't want it to be just another matter of consequence. I want romance (dare I say, love?) that makes me forget that I have an expiration date.
Oooh, deep. Maybe I'll revise that so it's not quite so completely and utterly emo.
This being cynical thing really isn't as fun as all the cynics I know crack it up to be.
Anyway, the point is that now is the point of brainstorming solutions to the problem, the problem being that I want to have an amazingly rewarding end to my Kenyon-Exeter experience, but what does that entail? A complete piss-up with random British people? Various tickets to Wales, North Ireland, the Czech Republic, France, Spain, Kosovo (A NEW COUNTRY, IN OUR LIFETIME, A SECOND VELVET REVOLUTION), Italy, Iona (an island off the coast of Scotland, not really a country but more of a destination. And there's no airport...)? Is it trips to London? Is it non-stop research? Or playwriting? Or exploring?
I guess this is the old "I never saw Paris" situation, except I'm not dying. I just probably won't ever be back to Europe, is all. And I have these fluctuations between sprees of action followed by collapses of inaction, the first being: what on earth can I do? Let me think of everything; and the second being: maybe the essence of England is just being here, and maybe having tea. I think this is the same reason why my room is always a mess: OOH! I could color code my entire bookshelf...but I still need to fold my clothes...oh well, none of it will ever get done, but the idea is what counts.
More on this crisis as it develops. But in the meantime:
halp.
A Springtime Epiphany
And that is:
Life in England is approaching normality. I've gotten used to it. England still holds wonder around corners, but I'm used to the corners being there. I'm finding America harder and harder to remember, and with the amount of growing that I've had to do, just as a person, time has warped, and I feel more and more like America is a distant past rather than an eventual future.
That said, of course it's perfect timing that I'm reaching this state now, a handful of months before I have to go back. By "perfect timing," I mean both that it's too bad - all sarcasm included - but also that it makes sheer sense. I don't have my deadline of a return to America in the near future, and I've been here long enough to feel like it's a significant amount of time.
And it is a significant amount of time! I've been here for five months! Five crucial months of my college experience, which couldn't be spent at Kenyon, which couldn't be spent with all my friends at home, which couldn't be spent moving around in the little friendships and intricacies, which I couldn't spend playing with my dog, or spending quality time with my family, or exploring America, or seeing American theater, or working in an American job, participating in American politics, reading American magazines...
There's probably a lot more to that rant, but I'm going to cut it off there. This may end up being one of my more ranty, impassioned entries. I don't quite know yet, it's kind of a strange place to be.
There are who seasons of shows that have come out that I've missed entirely, not that this is unusual since these things rarely penetrate the Kenyon bubble, except through filesharing. But I don't even have that! I have the BBC. When I went to Scotland I had Scottish TV. I had the Glasgow regional network. There's not that much good on. And I'm a token - remember how I used to say that being in England made me feel special because I was novel? - I'm a token. Take American politics, you get asked a lot about Barack and Hillary. People talk about Hillary like she's this evil witch that they can vote out of office. And they look at you, like the fate of the world is resting on you, and I guess in some ways it is, and then they change the subject to British politics because you aren't saying anything. Or if you do say something, you drop words like "democrat" "republican" and so on, and they nod knowingly and have large conversations, but who in England knows the reality of dealing with democrats and republicans?
Maybe I'm just angry at England for being normal. This isn't a disillusioned "the magic is gone" rant, but maybe things are starting to get to me. People not saying what they mean, is one. My run in with my directing lecturer after the class was over ("Griffin, I read your portfoilio, and it was really funny." when I didn't mean it to be funny at all), or just unexpressed thoughts you can see - or think you can see - lurking behind people's eyes ("The nerve, did he just take my place in the cue?"). I'm tired of stratification - people can talk about class here to no end - and hills, and endless drizzling, and the complete and utter lack of winter. Maybe that wanderlust that England ignited in me is now spurring me onward, I don't know.
Few. That rant is out of the way. I leave you, as often is the case, with Shakespeare (in particular, more Richard II):
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas’d out,—
Life in England is approaching normality. I've gotten used to it. England still holds wonder around corners, but I'm used to the corners being there. I'm finding America harder and harder to remember, and with the amount of growing that I've had to do, just as a person, time has warped, and I feel more and more like America is a distant past rather than an eventual future.
That said, of course it's perfect timing that I'm reaching this state now, a handful of months before I have to go back. By "perfect timing," I mean both that it's too bad - all sarcasm included - but also that it makes sheer sense. I don't have my deadline of a return to America in the near future, and I've been here long enough to feel like it's a significant amount of time.
And it is a significant amount of time! I've been here for five months! Five crucial months of my college experience, which couldn't be spent at Kenyon, which couldn't be spent with all my friends at home, which couldn't be spent moving around in the little friendships and intricacies, which I couldn't spend playing with my dog, or spending quality time with my family, or exploring America, or seeing American theater, or working in an American job, participating in American politics, reading American magazines...
There's probably a lot more to that rant, but I'm going to cut it off there. This may end up being one of my more ranty, impassioned entries. I don't quite know yet, it's kind of a strange place to be.
There are who seasons of shows that have come out that I've missed entirely, not that this is unusual since these things rarely penetrate the Kenyon bubble, except through filesharing. But I don't even have that! I have the BBC. When I went to Scotland I had Scottish TV. I had the Glasgow regional network. There's not that much good on. And I'm a token - remember how I used to say that being in England made me feel special because I was novel? - I'm a token. Take American politics, you get asked a lot about Barack and Hillary. People talk about Hillary like she's this evil witch that they can vote out of office. And they look at you, like the fate of the world is resting on you, and I guess in some ways it is, and then they change the subject to British politics because you aren't saying anything. Or if you do say something, you drop words like "democrat" "republican" and so on, and they nod knowingly and have large conversations, but who in England knows the reality of dealing with democrats and republicans?
Maybe I'm just angry at England for being normal. This isn't a disillusioned "the magic is gone" rant, but maybe things are starting to get to me. People not saying what they mean, is one. My run in with my directing lecturer after the class was over ("Griffin, I read your portfoilio, and it was really funny." when I didn't mean it to be funny at all), or just unexpressed thoughts you can see - or think you can see - lurking behind people's eyes ("The nerve, did he just take my place in the cue?"). I'm tired of stratification - people can talk about class here to no end - and hills, and endless drizzling, and the complete and utter lack of winter. Maybe that wanderlust that England ignited in me is now spurring me onward, I don't know.
Few. That rant is out of the way. I leave you, as often is the case, with Shakespeare (in particular, more Richard II):
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas’d out,—
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