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July 30, 2007
Monday Flower Blogging
Happy Monday (although my iTunes shuffle just popped up Tori Amos' cover of "I Don't Like Mondays"). Here's some more flowers, these from Hatfield House's amazing gardens. We played in them for quite the afternoon despite a drizzling rain that couldn't commit to being on or off. The dreary sky made for interesting colors in the lily pond, though.
Okidok, time for more off-line reading!
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July 27, 2007
Friday Goose
Take a gander at this English goose (first time I ever saw one that wasn't of the Canadian variety) before heading over to see the rest of this week's ark boarders. We really need an ark in Oxfordshire, by the by, the trains and buses have been much impeded by all the rain, and I'm starting to get worried e-mails from home inquiring about my ability to swim, wether or not I packed galoushes, and if I'm going to have to be evacuated like several people in London and Oxford have been. So far so good in this part of town, though I hear the girls in the cottage further down the road though have to hop a few fences and do some pretty gnarly mincing though to avoid the newly formed lake on the way back to their place. One of my roomates just ran in and said she was walking along a foot path this morning enjoying this morning's sunny respite from all the rain and "ended up in a pond." Her pants are wet to the knees!
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July 26, 2007
Happy Birthday, Boy
It's after midnight here (almost one in fact) so I feel it safe to post a Happy Birthday shout out to the dear boy friend, Alex. He's turning 21 and I feel terrible I'm not there to ring it in with him. This photo, however, is a pretty good representation of him livin' the good life down at Bluff View, getting to lounge around on pretty women, i.e. me. He's my best friend, my confidant, and most especially a very affectionate compatriot and partner in crime. Any and all friends out there, make it the best day EVER!
Happy birthday, babe. I hope it is friend filled and does not result upchucking. I'll be thinking about you all day (tomorrow, later today, which ever) and hoping it's merry. I'll eat the last piece of my Bratz cake in celebration for you!!!
Much Love,
Me
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July 25, 2007
Wordless Wednesday
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July 23, 2007
Monday Flower Blogging
I hope this isn't terribly lame and boring-- I've built up quite the collection of flower photos due to the English enthusiasm and flare for gardening. First it was the rose gardens at Blenheim Palace and now wherever I go I keep seeing interesting blossoms. Even today on my way to class I encountered some giant bouquets left over from a rather large wedding reception that was held here at the manor house. We lowley guests were asked to scamper into the wood work for the whole thing and stay out of sight, so I don't know how it actually went, but it seems they had a big tent and lovely flowers.
These are from the beginning of the queue, from the rose garden at Blenheim. It was great light that day and it was like being in the middle of a Waterhouse painting.
Continue reading "Monday Flower Blogging"
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July 22, 2007
Dali + Disney = Destino
Perhaps this is old news, as I've seen of a few websites that Destino has been making the rounds at a few film festivals since 2003, but I'm so tickled I just have to blog. As I mentioned in my last post, I just got back from a whirlwind (read exhausting, but very fun) weekend bouncing around south east England, and in London. While in London I made a stop by the Tate Modern gallery, mainly in hopes of seeing Sam Taylor Wood's video installation piece Brontosaurus for the first time since 2000, when at a much tender-er age I thought I'd been scared for life when encountering the young man in the video's wildly swinging junk. Alas, it is no longer on display and is somewhere deep in the bowels of the Tate's archives, inaccessible to all but the curators. There was, however, a great Dali Exhibit. I've appreciated Dali's work on a purely aesthetic level for years, who can resist images like those in One Second Before Awakening From a Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate?". However I know next to nothing about surrealism and was delighted to find out that it is linked to some of my favorite things, like Freud's ideas about sex and death, and that Dali was especially fascinated with early cinema. The usual famous paintings (and many many more ones I'd never seen before) were there, your melting watches and the above one with the tigers. But what was the most fascinating were the rooms showing the films Dali collaborated with other filmakers on, including the infamous Un Chien Andalou. What really wowed me, and what all this wind up is for, was Dali's collaboration with Walt Disney on Destino, which was sadly abandoned for various reasons, but finished in the past few years.
I would describe myself as an amateur fan of animation. I'm no great student of it, and I'd never have the patience to be an animator, but I really appreciate some of the finer things done with the medium. I really enjoy Don Bluth's stuff, as an edgier, more adventerous take on what Disney started (indeed Bluth did work at Disney for a while) and I was really into anime as a teenager (and there are still a number of shows and movies I adore and return to). So when I saw Destino it was like all of my favorite things in animation colliding-- the more adult, cinematic use of the medium as seen in 1988's Akira, with that unique Disney conception of character design and movement, as well as a Western perspective, referencing the kind of Classical art, mythology, and storytelling that is familiar to us. Perhaps this is why Destino felt so fresh to me, so intriguing. It made me wonder where American/Western animation could have gone if there had been any kind of market for animation as adult, intellectual cinema/art at the time, or even today. While Japan's animation industry is hardley serious all the time, it has put out far more animation that is decidedly grown up than the West (granted, Japan has put out far more animation of any sort than the US...). With several of the anime shows I've remained fond of referencing Western philosophy and style (think Revolutionary Girl Utena or Neon Genesis Evangelion), I do wonder how a broader Western animation industry would compare in its own approach of similar artistic and literary themes, or how we would approach the art and literary histories of say, the East. Destino is a very alluring glimpse into what could have been, and it gives me hope that Disney as it is today even bothered finishing it and showing it off at film festivals.
Phew, a little seven minute film sure did provide a lot of food for thought.
Oh, and a castle.
Dover Castle, to be exact.
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July 19, 2007
Solo In Europe, Baby
EDIT: Apologies my picture and linkage posted funny on Thursday, I was rushing like hell to get out the door and onto a bus and didn't have time to fix it!
So this weekend, starting today, in fact, will be the first time I try maneuvering the trains and hostels and whatnot by myself. I feel pretty confident I can do it, I know I can, or I wouldn't be trying. I've had a good example for traveling solo set by my grandmother, who went to 49 of the fifty states and all the continents many times over. I'll be heading out to the East Coast of England to stalk Charles Dickens, whose books I've grown to love this summer as I've been getting ready for a class on his work in the fall. I've booked hostels, and theater tickets for London on the way back home, and my cottage-mates have told me I'm very brave to opt out of going with everyone else to Scotland and strike out on my own. I'm beginning to think that they are right and I'm a little crazy, but crazy is where the fun is.
If you couldn't tell already, I'm writing this to get the nervous out while I eat some oatmeal (aka Scottish Porridge according to the bag). Speaking of food, to detour off the previous subject and onto another I've been thinking about mentioning here for a while, I'm really impressed with the UK's grocery stores so far. I've been shopping at a chain called Sainsbury's and I'm blown away by England's emphasis on the word/rhetoric of "health/healthy" in advertiseing and the selection/price of organic offerings. I knew Europe in general was pickier about GMOs and food treated with radition, demanding whatever food in those categories as gets through to stores be labeled like woah, but on a , this is so much different (even in more rural areas) from the BiLo at home. Toto, Kansas, you get the drift. I know where in the UK the mushrooms that went into the vegitable soup I made were grown-- I've been eating tasty Irish mushrooms. And that's pretty cool. Hopefully I can find a Sainsbury's or equivilent in walking distance of where I'll be this weekend, I need to pick up rations! PBJ sandwiches ahoy...
I'll have to board the Friday Ark a little early (I know it's only four in the morning on Thursday at home, but it's slightly less barely Thursday here). I'll be back Sunday, in the meantime enjoy these Tower of London Rooks, who hold the fate of the kingdom in their fiesty little claws. Legend has it that if they ever fly away, England will fall, the Tower will crumble, and things will generally be less pleasent in this neck of the woods. Hopefully the other critters on the ark are less trouble.
Picture after hte jump and have a good weekend!
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July 18, 2007
Wordless Wednesday (From the Gardens at Hatfield House)
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July 13, 2007
You Guessed It- Friday Creature
I haven't gotten any good pictures of British animals yet. So far the only one's I've really seen other than a couple of truely adorable West Highland terriers are the strange flying ants that mysteriously swarmed the hall, stairs, laundry room and eventually my bed room in the cottage (which used to be the rectory before the vicar moved down the street) I'm staying in with three other girls. I gave up on sleeping in my bed last night after I kept finding stray ants crawling on the sheets and covers, and crashed on some sofa cushions thrown on the floor of another girl's room. When I came back up to check the morning internets just now, all evidence of ant had mysteriously dissapeared. There seem to be only a few stragglers in the laundry room.
So, with that long preamble to explain the seeming oddity of this week's Friday Creature when I'm in the UK, here is a manatee from when I was down in Florida in June under unhappy circumstances. The manatees seemed pretty bent on cheering me up though, and it worked. This manatee came with two (huge) calves into a small boat inlet/marina. They like the extra warm shallow water, and spent a lot of time rolling around and poking their noses up. We had the good fortune to be over the bridge right when they came under it, so I managed to catch this lucky shot
You know the drill-- there's many more where this guy (or gal, I suppose) came from on The Friday Ark.
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July 11, 2007
Wordless Wednesday- From Oxford
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July 09, 2007
Departure
I will be departing for England tomorrow morning, or rather to Nashville, and then from New York to England, etc. etc., but it's been a pleasent last day in town. I had lunch with my roommate, Alex, and a friend at Las Margaritas which was tastey if somewhat more fattening than the previous destination of Sushi Nabe, which tragically doesn't open until four on Mondays. Then ran into GrandWeeRachel's little sister, and BFF to my roommate along with her boyfriend at Stone Cup, where we were waiting to meet up with a couple more buddies for coffee/smoothies. One friend is about to move to California for grad school, and I'm very touched she found time to see me today since I'll be gone her last weeks in Chattown.
It seems like everyone is entering a new phase of their lives, these days. People ask me what year in school I am, and it seems there are several answers I could give. There is the obvious, literal answer that next year will be my junior year. But then again, I'm a sophmore in the UHON program, since I wanted to take the freshman courses they offer and applied as such. And, yet again, most of my friends at college are seniors, super seniors, or alums, as I started auditing classes at UTC as a high school home-schooler when they were starting as freshman. It seems half my friends are applying to the next phase of their schooling, getting hitched, or taking a year off before doing one of those two things. The other half have just finished their freshman years of college, which is certainly chock full of change. I honestly feel like I am exactly where I am-- in between both experiances, both finally making some progress with the personal and social trials of the underclassman, and yet feeling weirdly out of place to have been taking college classes for four years and instead of looking up grad schools or banquet halls, to be looking up classes for the next two or three years of undergrad. It's all good though, I'm used to doing things differently wether on purpose or not, and I'm certainly very happy.
Here's to change, the shift in to the last half of summer break, and grand adventures. I'm sitting pretty right now, but by Wednesday I'm sure I'll be looking much like I did the first day in Switzerland in May:
Hopefully I'll be able to post photos while I'm away. If not, have a good month!
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July 07, 2007
7-7-07
I hope everyone else has had a good day on this once-in-a-century date. Today has been serendipitously pleasent. Shortly after I woke up this morning, someone turned up the stereo to blast Bruce Spingsteen's "Thunder Road," one of my favorite songs. A big breakfast and some gussying up later, mi familia and I went to the wedding of two friends which was beautiful and sentimental. It was a very low key affair, and it was touching to be one of the invitees at a fairly small wedding. I'm really happy for them. A while after we returned from the nuptual events there was a pleasent little block party in the neighborhood and now we're catching some of the Live Earth concerts on TV. The Black Eyed Peas are rocking out right now, but I'm sure the other blogs that have been following the events all day could give you a better recap. I just have to say though, few things are cooler than the Nunatak's set in Antarctica, where they rocked out in parkas to what appeared to be (thanks to video editing, I'm sure) a grateful crowd of exuberant penguins. Indie Rock Bands in Antarctica? Dancing penguins?! BITCHIN!
To top it all off, at some point this morning Alex and I realized it's our half-anniversery. I feel a little silly reckognizing that, especially considering this particular half anniversery marks two and a half years, like we've been dating long enough that another six months shouldn't be so big a deal. But I don't suppose there is anything wrong with still being so excited by the fact you're dating the person you're with.
At anyrate, I'll be checking the Chattablogs main page now to see if anyone else there has 7-7-07 stories.
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July 06, 2007
Anghiarian Dog
Here's a noble dalmation I saw peeking out of a window in Anghiari, one of my favorite Italian towns. The bars of the window jut out so he had a huge sill/window seat to stand on, I think. He contrasted so nicely with the red flowers that I took waaaay too many pictures of this fellow, and for that I was greatly mocked by my traveling companions. Ah well.
Go check out the other creatures on the Friday Ark and have a good weekend! (Mine's going to be spent panicking over preparations for going overseas again on Tuesday, this time to Oxford, England. I'm very excited, but also rather intimidated.
Posted by Spike at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 01, 2007
A Little Lower Than the Angels
Alex (the boyfriend) and I went on a most enjoyable jaunt to Johnson City this weekend to see some friends of ours who recently moved up there. We spent a good bit of time in nearby Jonesborough, where the annual Jonesborough Festival was going on. Arts and crafts lined the streets of the historic main drag, a vendor played Simon and Garfunkle on a Native American flute, and there was plenty of people watching to enjoy. It was a pleasant surprise to have happened in town at the same time the festival was going on, but the real hi-light of the weekend ended up being an even bigger surprise. The couple we were staying with recently began attending the Holston Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and invited us to go with them on Sunday. Normally I just feel awkward and out of place in church, confused by the rhetoric and waiting for someone to realize I'm a curious impostor. There are a lot of things I like about church-- the emphasis and dedication to community and service, the networking and dialogue, the creation of a safe space, the celebration of what the congregation has in common, as well as the benefits of tradition and ritual. But that always seems overshadowed to me by the things that make me feel uncomfortable-- the rhetoric of violence, submission to an authority figure who, to me, seems pretty sketchy, and emphasis on the details of the story rather than the real message.
Part of the surprising aspect of the Holston Valley service is simply that I (and even more unusually, Alex) attended. I grew up going to Episcopal services for a while, but before this year, it had probably been a decade since I'd gone to a service that wasn't part of a wedding or funeral. Even longer for Alex. This year, though, I've already been to church twice as much as in the past ten years. First I went along with assorted family members to a Presbyterian service while at a family reunion last month. I was interested in going since I had enjoyed how much the congregation and town had come together to honor my grandmother at her memorial service last fall. I wanted to see what the usual vibe was, and what about the church made my grandmother so fond of it. I was confused by the amount of violent rhetoric in the service, what with hymns about going to battle against God's enemies and such, and how my intellectually curious and peaceful grandmother reconciled the Christian message of compassion and service with the tone of combat and submission I encountered that day.
It seemed significant, then, that the service at Holston Valley instead emphasized "laying down my sword and shield," the brother and sisterhood of mankind, and the seeming contradiction between what we perceive to be god's wishes for us, the laws he laid down, and the message Jesus taught according to the Bible and the endless cycles of war and violence humans wreck on one another. The reverend discussed his memories of growing up during World War II, and the difference between the country's united dedication and effort towards the war and today's military efforts that seem to affect the citizens of this country only if they are related to one of our soldiers. Credence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" was played, along with "Let There Be Peace On Earth." The sermon itself came across as a well thought out exchange of ideas about not only faith, but how we view the world and the struggles we all have to uphold one of the principles of Unitarian Universalism, "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." The reverend himself admitted to struggling with this principle himself, and referenced many sources from Mark Twain to "One Jesus, Many Christs" by Gregory Riley. What I mean is, that rather than being reminded yet again that we should listen when God calls and be thankful for Jesus' sacrifice, the sermon extended out to examine cultural points of view both in Biblical times and today and see how they mesh with biblical teaching as well as common misperceptions of Christian thought. In short, it was thought provoking rather than confusing, as well as really challenging.
I certainly don't want to come off as devaluing a different approach, one more in line with a traditional approach such as the Presbyterian service I attended. If there weren't something valuable to be derived from such an approach, I doubt my curious grandmother would have gotten as much out of her church as she did. However, I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why drama and violence are such frequent features of religious discussion, and why we make divisions of allies and enemies instead of creating a larger congregation out of our commonalities. I regret not being able to discuss this with my grandmother herself, whatever answers she gave to my questions would surely have been very interesting. I also wish it were possible to tell her that a lingering sense that she isn't completely gone might be part of the reason I've accepted two more invitations to attend church than usual, that her death eight months ago has challenged my comfortable, atheist, perspective.
It's too bad that Holston Valley is three hours away, but I am pretty excited about checking out the Unitarian Church here in Chattanooga. I took a look at their website and read in a few of the sermons they keep archived in PDF format. They seem to have a similar feel to that I heard at Holston Valley, pulling in everything from pop-culture to literature to explore the topic of the day.
Here's a couple of photos I took in Slovenia that follows the general religious theme. Both are from churches in the beautiful little medieval town of Anghiari, where several examples of the old practice of making mannequins of the Virgin Mary and dressing them in miniature robes has remained preserved, despite the abolition of the practice centuries ago, and resulting desctruction of many of the sculptures. There are more of these mannequins in the State Museum of Palazzo Taglieschi in Anghiari, but these two are the only ones I saw "practicing" still.
For a couple other miscellaneous ideas about the Holston Valley sermon, follow the jump.
Continue reading "A Little Lower Than the Angels"
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