Thinking About "Mumford & Sons"

In regards to the post below this one, I was thinking of the lyrics of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." The official lyrics are

Rock and roller cola wars

but I was thinking "roller coaler," which I mistyped as "roller coller" because it looks better. I wonder if you can claim creative license to writing something down incorrectly, or mishearing something. I could hear "coller," but instead it was "cola."

Oi, my thought is too complicated to be expressed at this time of evening. Maybe I'll come back to it later.

However, the band Mumford and Sons is my new Counting Crows, and perhaps the Proclaimers, too - more than the songs that have cropped up in popular movies like Shrek. (Gasp - Shrek 2 is where I heard my first Counting Crows song... eep, more proof that I"m living life backwards.)

Rock 'n Roller Coller Rides

This week has been full of ups and downs; sometimes it seems that even an hour can be full of as many ups and downs as there are waves upon the sea. Thursday I was feeling pretty low because I had a few mishaps with integrating socially; today I feel great because it's been a pretty rocking weekend so far. So on Friday, I pretty much did the same thing I always do - wake up, go to class, go to the library. 

However, in the evening there was a Young Single Adult dance in Glasgow, which I went to. There were fifteen (twenty, actually) of us who piled in four cars and made the hour-long journey across Scotland's waist to Scotland's linty belly button, Glasgow. The dance was lovably awkward in the way that all of the American dances I've ever been to have been awkward. The Jovenes Adultos Solteros dances in Spain were much better, and there were plenty of Latin American men who knew how to dance salsa, meringue, etc. Not so much in Scotland, which is okay. There are and will always be ceilidhs!

What I loved most is that I felt like a part of something, included in the group, a member, which is what I feel I have been missing and what I find hardest to achieve. We stayed out late as a group, went and grabbed McDonalds (they have Rolo McFlurries over here!), I fell asleep in the car on the ride home, and then I made it back to my flat and promptly did my evening rituals and tucked myself into bed.

And today I woke up really early to go to Stirling! Yes, I've already been, but a few friends were going, so I thought I'd tag along. In addition to the Castle (the royal apartments were still closed), we saw the Tolbooth (not that impressive, but has been turned into an intriguing modern art gallery), tried to see Holy Rude kirk (it is spelled poorly and was closed), and the Wallace Monument, all of which I had missed on the first go-around. After dinner and reading for a bit, I went to the Montague and met a few other friends for Halloween. I had my second lemon-and-lime bitters and my first successful bob for apples!

All in all, a successful day. Status: loving Scotland.

The tower is the Wallace Monument, which I climbed.

Cemetery in Stirling.

Great Hall at Stirling Castle

Stirling Castle from the Wallace Monument

Arches at the top of the Wallace Monument

Even abroad, life is not always wonderful. There are highs and lows in Scotland just like there is anywhere else, but when the lows come, they help to make the highs all the better, more meaningful, and more delightful, lest 'shade to shade doth come too easily', to make the fire warmer and give it a deeper glow (some things that Keats said and Stevenson may have said a long time ago).

Sappho, Poet-Great-Grandmother of My Soul

I am reading about Sappho, the ancient Greek poetess. We don’t know much of women’s ideas in ancient Greece, but we know Sappho who has taken up her stylus and spoken out.

“Come now, luxuriant Graces, and beautiful-haired Muses”

Does this remind anyone else of "Come, Muse, tell me of the man of many wiles"? Sappho knows about Greek conventions and invoking the Muses. It is a pity that all we have our fragments of her writing...

“Now, I shall sing these songs

Beautifully

For my companions”

“I desire

And I crave”

She, too, had ideas and feelings, and even though she may have been forced to hide in her home, she still produced work and literature and had something to say. I see in her traces of Sylvia Plath; I see in her traces of Angela Davis.

“Sweet mother, I can’t do my weaving –

Aphrodite has crushed me with desire

For a tender youth.”

(Translations by Julia Dubnoff)

!!!

I just overheard a couple talking about travel arrangements, meeting families, where they'll live, cats, and getting parents' blessings - I think they just got engaged! Hooray for the happy couple.

Mazel tov.

This makes me an official creeper, in that I would first of all listen to the conversation (it was hard not to, they were sitting right behind me), and then I would post about overhearing their conversation on my blog.

Untitled I

I'm not the sharpest chunk of cheese when it comes to social situations, but I think I've realized just how far it's come. I'm awkward no matter whom I'm with, and my conversation topics aren't witty and they don't necessarily flow evenly, and I can never think of something good to say in the moment - if I'm really lucky, I can come up with something good to say ten minutes later. I stumble over my words, use too many of them to begin with, and don't have much to say in the end anyway.

Except for when I'm with my family and I'm in a giant bubble of comfort, I feel I still babble like a high school girl.

That shall change.

Part of my problem, I think, is that I take myself far too seriously. I need to remember how to joke, how to take things lightly, how to be able to turn a meaning on its head. The Scottish are good at doing that, I think; there's a bit of a spark to a lot of them, I feel, or at least the ones I've met so far (who are mostly from Glasgow, and you know what they say about Glaswegians? They have more fun at a funeral than folks from Edinburgh have at a wedding).

Anyway, despite my awkwardness, I still have fun. Tonight at Family night with the Young Single Adults, we played mafia. In retrospect, it was obvious who the mafia members were, but I didn't get it, and I was one of the last, oblivious citizens hanging about. Oh well. When people cracked jokes, I laughed heartily - I'm good at laughing and listening, and I can make a nice comment to my neighbour if I feel like it. But if we were all talking all at once, no one would hear anything, and no one would get to shine. Long ago I made my peace with not being the life of the party, but sometimes I wish I could get a little more time in the spotlight.

Sheep - one of the things that Scotland has made.

Fitting In and "Mormon Moment" - Pt 3

So, the famous webcomic xkcd posted the picture below a little while ago. Note the section on blogs.

Thank you, xkcd-man.

According to this map, I'm in multiple places at once, because this is a writing/travel/personal/journal/religious blog. I have defied the laws of physics!

Speaking of defying the laws of physics, there is a wonderful poem by Carol Lynn Pearson entitled "Position," which I may have shared before. It's so good, though, that it bears sharing again:

If "A" looks up to "B"

Then by nature of the physical universe

"B" must look down on "A"

Rather like two birds

Positioned

One on a tree

And one on the ground.

Or so thought Marjorie

Who had always wanted to marry

A man she could look up to

But wondered where that

Would place her

If she did.

Imagine her astonishment

When she met Michael and found

That together they stood

Physics on his head.

You could never

Draw this on paper

For it defies design

But year after year

They lived a strange

Arrangement

That by all known laws

Could not occur:

She looked up to him

And he looked up to her.

Ah, if only more of life could overlap like this - Carol Lynn Pearson is both a Mormon and a feminist. I love the fact that they don't have to be competing ideologies, even though there are some incompatibilities. In Church, some people say that the reason women don't have the priesthood is because women are so much kinder and concerned naturally than men, and that women don't need it, it is the men who need it to equal themselves to women. I don't like that argument, because it still puts one gender above the other. In my estimation, everyone is perfectly equal before God, but it is society and our mean mortal minds that puts out of balance that equality.

Yes, the photographs from the Hubble Telescope are back.

I Imagine Fantine Dying

If you want to hear about Scotland, skip this post.

For the last five months, this blog has been about my adventures in strange and distant lands, growing up, and the minutiae that make life abroad different from life at home. Previously, it was a place for me to write my thoughts, share a few scraps of poems and prose, record religious experiences, and even track the infamous "leg experiment" (which by necessity has begun again here in blustery Scotland). I'm bringing back some of the archaic purposes of the blog; that I'm sharing it with an ever-growing audience is exciting and unnerving and makes me all the more aware that I'm not alone, and that I can't get by alone. Thanks for sticking with me thus far.

I have lost of my imagination. Not all of it, but the parts that made it good, that made it special and mine and entertained me (or so I have led myself to believe) for hours. I do not think in as many pictures, cartoons, half-sketches, images, as I used to. More and more, there are words running in a little string, or a voice half-narrating in my head some reptilian flickers of thought. Sometimes there are pictoral memories that accompany them, and even rarer are the sounds, and tastes and smells, although if I concentrate on something specific – like the apple and crème pasty I had the other day – I can pretty reliably summon up the images, the sensations, the sense of place.

When I was in eighth grade (or was it ninth? I have forgotten), I would try to read the unabridged English translation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables every morning during breakfast before I had to go to school. First thing in the morning, I could barely make my eyes stumble over the sentences, let alone understand what was going on. I got nowhere near the end of the book, but I remember three things very clearly: the description of the abbe’s home, which was so thorough I would be able to guide you through it today, Valjean’s escape from parole and running along a series of Parisian walls as he set out to find the hapless Cosette, and Fantine’s death. It must have been one of my more lucid mornings or in the afternoon after school, but I remember reading Fantine’s death, and I hold it up as an ensign of my imaginative heyday. I see her still, a pale wax imitation of a person sketched in pastels, with a few strands of faded yellow hair sticking out of her bandage cap, her head against her chest in her death throe, wedged downward because she had hit her head on the metal bars of the bed frame. Her mouth slightly open in surprise, though not enough to show that her teeth were missing. Her hands spread out, one resting lightly on her chest and the other wrist-facing outward, half of the welcoming embrace you find on infant Jesuses in nativity sets. And what I remember most was the fire in her eyes, the light that drained out of them. Gone. I don’t even have the words to describe it, that slow-yet-all-too-quick-extinction in her eyes that let you know she was dead. The eyes were dull.

I cannot imagine like that anymore! Even my description is dull in comparison to the image I still have in my head. My current task for a class is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, which is beautiful and reminds me so much of Slaughterhouse 5, but Monica Douglas, whose nose is always read and who is good at math and a prefect, I cannot imagine well. Muriel Spark, the author, did not give me much more to go on, and aside from that telltale marker, she is a blob moving around in my imagination with an uncommonly red nose; that is the only definite thing about her.

I’m being unfair; most of the other characters I’ve encountered and tried to visualize are blobs too unless they have a distinctive feature about them. Like Hagrid. Hagrid is a very comforting character to imagine, because there’s so much of him to grab hold of without getting too specific. He’s big, tall, and straight, rather like a gigantic doorway with a lot of dark hair on top and pockets. The pockets and hair get mixed up sometimes, but that’s okay, because it’s all shadows mixed among other shadows, with a pair of dark eyes and big hands and ruddy black boots mixed in.

I spent some time trying to imagine an Edward Cullen, and needless to say, I didn’t come up with Robert Pattinson (or is his name George?). I won’t go into the details, but he ended up being a snarky-nosed, thin-faced anime character with bronze hair and a slightly glowy complexion. Bella was just a lump that did… I’m not quite sure what… and yet I was roped into caring for her, and once I realized what had happened, I kicked and screamed to get out of it. Watching the movie and reading a Lol-Cat comic strip about it helped immensely.

En fin du compte, I am disappointed with myself because I have let my imagination fade over time. If it's not taken out and used once in a while, it goes away and is replaced by mundane things like charts and worrying about finances. Those things are very important, too, but you can't - I can't - let them replace what I think is a fundamental of humanity.

Oh, the chocolate. You can find it everywhere and anywhere. See the white things in the middle? Those are chocolate hedgehogs (not pinecones).

The Lembas is a Little Stale, Galadriel

I promised a post that would reflect my time in the Lake District. Already the details have blurred into a happy memory of driving through the countryside and up small mountains covered with heather, and taking occasional walks up the sides of mountains, to waterfalls, or along a footpath. We stopped at one to see a the Bowder Stone, a rock that had slid from the mountainside and come to rest in the valley on a corner, so that the entire rock balances on its side.

The rock itself is remarkable, but that isn’t what struck me initially. It was the forest walking to the stone that was so beautiful – it was like a primeval forest, remembering times long gone when bears and wolves may still have roamed through the trees, hunted by Celtic warriors blessed by their druids. But that wasn’t what struck me, either. It was the light and the greenery – it’s always the same things that get me – everywhere I looked, I saw trees and moss and heather, all lit up by the sunlight. The moss was so thick, it grew around every side of the trees. Standing there, I could almost hear the forest growing, I could feel it.

Time didn’t matter in that forest; it smelt of the eternal. This was the real Lothlorian in real proportions, not one romanticized as a dwelling for elves that grew old a long, long time ago. It was ageless and young and ancient and fecund and real. My memories of it are only passing, but it will be a place I will return to again and again within my own memory and imagination.

Pictures have been added!

They can only do so much justice...

Lighthouse-Library

It is windy outside. I am sitting in the Classics Library – whoo libraries and spending time in them – while the wind howls above. Though the library is located on floor 2M, I’m really on the fifth floor, as we would reckon it back home. The walls are light blue with white trim; I feel like I’m in a lighthouse.

Let us go to the lighthouse, "to the the lighthouse," they say – but I am already there. Like any true library-in-the-sky, the ceiling is mostly one bright big skylight, and I can see the changing and the shifting of the clouds like through a viewfinder on a vintage camera. The color of the paint on the walls almost matches the color of the sky; I think it might be a little too dark. I am in a light-house camera, like the camera obscura on the Royal Mile, only my eye opens up.

And now to descend, descend, from my tower on high, back to lecture and routine and mundane life.

I should be reading and researching, not writing about non-sensical things that don’t matter to anyone but me.

You'd Think This Were a Tumble Blog

The last week has been a little hectic, but I did go on a wonderful family visit to Shap just over the river from the Lake District over the weekend. Pictures will be coming soon!

To make up for my lack of writing, I have been posting quotes, which is something that I associate with being unable to come up with my own material and Tumble Blogs - sorry Jeff. But aha, no more! You shall not find me mouthing another novelist or poet (at least not for the next few days) - other people will want to mouth me (after this full-stop).

Most of my time this week has been consumed with reading Magnus Merriman, a nigh-impossible book to find in Edinburgh right now, and then writing some work that is due for class in the next couple of days. Trust me, what I have been doing over the past couple of days has not been notable - although today I did go to the fourth floor of the Main Library early enough to snag a seat next to the window, which meant that I was looking out across the Meadows and towards the southeast of Edinburgh's skyline. What I saw filled me with great joy; close-knit stone buildings with empty chimneys peeping above the rooftops, treetops silent and still green-and-yellow despite the mid-October air, church spires scraping the gray Edinburgh sky, and a few shoulders of hills rounding in the faraway distance.

The other places to study on campus - especially the computer labs - are so depressing and in basements.

Gratuitous pictures! I will post more on my weekend; I really, really want to write about my impressions while going on some of the walks, but I do not have the time now.

An un-drunk cup of tea, left to colden in its round false-porcelain mug with a spoon politely perched atop its mouth, is a lonely thing. The loneliest thing.

From an Interview about "Cages"

"I’m chasing answers. I think the point to a story, or any creative endeavor really, is to work through your questions and try and reach some sort of conclusion. Even if it’s oblique, or fragmented, or confusing, I see the purpose of creative endeavor as a process of offering the world a point of view. Others can agree or not, or elaborate on your work, but in that sense, I don’t see that art is any different from science. We build our knowledge of the world by constantly offering possible answers, or visions of the world, and pass the baton on to the next generation."


-from an interview with David McKean

From the Book that was Near-Impossible to Find

"As though his tears had flooded it his mind was filled with knowledge and he knew that his life was kin to all the life around him, even to the beasts that grazed in the fields, and to the very fields themselves. Live was the flowering of a single land, and love of country was of virtue but stark necessity. Patriotism and the waving of flags was an empty pride, but love of one's own country, of the little acres of one's birth, was the navel-string to life. His life, as the life about him, was the vigour of his own blood, and life could not be whole save in its own place. Now he knew why, in far parts of the world, he had often felt the unreality of all he saw and descried a foolish artifice in his own business there. The far parts of the world were fine roving for pirates who had a secrete island whither they might bring back their booty, but to roam the world without a haven or a home was to be lost as a star that fell to nothingness through the ordered ranks of heaven. Now he knew why, in late months, time had passed so simply and untroubled. This soil was his own flesh and time passed over him and it like a stream that ran in one bed. Here indeed he was immortal, for death would but take him back to his other self,and this other self was so lovely a thing, in its cloak of snow, in the bright hues of spring, in the dyes of the westering sun, that to lie in it was surely beatitude."

- Magnus Merriman, Eric Linklater

An Explanation of "Almost Enough to Make Me Believe in Karma..."

I was too busy remembering what I had done over the weekend to explain the title of the post. To me, this resulted in a poorly-titled post, and so I'm rectifying that right now. To begin the post, I would like you to recall the story of the old farmer, reproduced here from NVCC's world religions class page. For a better-written tale see "Tao Living: Misfortunes and Blessings" by Derek Lin.

Seems there was this farmer who needed a horse.
He got his horse but it ran away.
His friends all said: "What terrible luck."
He said: "Good luck, bad luck, we'll see."
The horse came back with a harem of mares.
His friends all said: "What good luck."
He said: "Good luck, bad luck, we'll see."
His son broke his leg trying to break in one of the new horses.
His friends all said: "What terrible luck."
He said: "Good luck, bad luck, we'll see."
The king drafted all the young men into war,
except the Farmer's son who had the broken leg.
His friends all said: "What good luck."
He said: "Good luck, bad luck, we'll see."

From "Zen Shorts" by Jon Muth

Now, as this Taoist tale relates to my French journey, it goes like this: on Saturday, Lala and I had made it to the Saint Chapelle at about 16h45, and last entry wasn't until 17h30, so we thought we were good to go and had plenty of time. However, just as we got in queue, one of the workers closed the line. There was much consternation. What were we to do next?

As we were deciding, I decided to take a bit of rest because we'd done a lot of walking. I leaned against the wall of the Conciergerie building, and like justice raining down from above, a pigeon let forth its foul excrement upon my person. It must have been one magic piece of crap on the proportions of the magic loogie of Seinfield lore, because some of it landed on my forefinger, while some landed on my upper cheek. I have not had such a traumatic experience concerning minor hygiene/animals since the time that spider lept out of me from the blanket Reesie crocheted for me my first semester of college. I went as stiff as a board and frantically searched my purse for a handkerchief, uttering a constant stream of unintelligable vowels like "aah, ehh, ahh" (which all have very distinct sounds and sub-sounds, mind you). Once the handkerchief out and the excrement removed from my face, I could begin to think again and relaxed from the fight-or-flight burst of adrenaline that had dumped into my system.

Why universe, oh why did you close the Saint Chapelle and then send a bird - a pigeon nonetheless - to foul upon me? (Oh dear, I'm not even going to make the pun...)

"Alice in Wonderland" meets "Beauty and the Beast" tea ware.

Since we were still in front of the Conciergerie, and the Palais du Justice was right there, we decided to go check it out. The entrance to the Palais is shared with that of the Saint Chapelle, and even though we didn't have tickets, we told the guard we were going to the Palais du Justice. We got through security just fine, and then I set out on my merry way to find the entrance to the Palais, expecting there to be a lovely exhibit and place where we could wander around to our heart's content.

I walked around a bit, but no entrance spied I. Lala was eying the entrance to the Saint Chapelle. We had gotten through security, and it appeared there was not much more to do. There was another queue for the Saint Chapelle. We stood akimbo for a few minutes while we tried to determine if the people in line had tickets already, and then decided to pop in line. As we neared the entrance, indeed the ticket office was still open and bustling, and so our prospects and our hope brightened. As we were standing in line, we decided that getting to see the Saint Chapelle totally made up for the bird poop. However, distrustful as we are of the universe and good fortune, we wondered if there was some bad piece of misfortune just around the corner to balance out this bit of luck.

Upon reflection, I cast my mind to the day before and getting my luggage through the madness that is the train station of Saint Lazare. To get through the barriers (i.e. to get out of the station) you need to present your ticket, and I had thought I had lost mine. It took a good 15 minutes to figure this out while walking back and forth through a mass of people - not a fun experience. Lala agreed with me on this, and so perhaps Saint Lazare and the pigeon counted for two bad strokes of luck the universe had sent our way, and then getting to see the Saint Chapelle made up for it or put us one stroke ahead, and the universe owed us another good favour (perhaps that nothing else bad happen to us for a while, please?).

It's so easy to fall prey to superstitious tendencies, I thought as we sat in the Saint Chapelle and admired its beauty. We also wondered if karma was a thing where every good action must have an equal and opposite negative reaction, or if there was extra positive energy in the universe it would manifest itself as a piece of good fortune for the person it happened to be nearest. Tricky thing, karma.

Lala and me with the Saint Chapelle in the background. To the right of the frame is the Palais du Justice!

Anyway, we started wandering towards home. The following day, I expressed a wish to go to Church to Lala, and we discovered that the worship meeting was at 11h20 - and it was about 10h50 when we discovered this. I made the decision to go, it was worth even missing the first part of the meeting if I could be there for most of it, and we were on our way. As luck would have it, there was a gi-freaking-normous group from BYU-Idaho attending the meeting, and so the sacrament ran late and I was able to attend all of the meeting!

The rest of the trip was just good - Lala got a good sandwich and I got a latka in the Jewish Quarter, and even though the train to Charles de Gaulle wasn't running like it should have, I still made it to my plane on time, and life is just wonderful sometimes.

"And I said, mama, mama, mama, why am I so aloneI can't go outside
I'm scared I might not make it home"

-Rain King, Counting Crows

This is not how I actually feel; I just have been listening to some good ol' Counting Crows.

From "Ode on Melancholy"

"Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
and feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes"

- John Keats

"The flight in the heather: the moor"

"My head was nearly turned with fear and shame; and at what I saw, when I looked out around me on the moor, my heart was like dying in my body. For sure enough..."

- Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson

Almost Enough to Make Me Believe in Karma...

Bonjour! J'ai passe' un week-end tellement merveilleux a Paris! That translated, "I had an absolutely wonderful weekend in Paris!"

So, I went to visit the wonderful Lala who is studying abroad in the City of Lights, and needless to say, best weekend ever. However, before I get into the events of this weekend, I must remark that on Friday as the taxi was bearing me through the misty Edinburgh morning to the airport, I was gripped with such a feeling of love for this city, I could hardly stand the thought that I was leaving it.

Bruntsfield Commons, a view which I see on my way to Church!

"The Meadows", with Edinburgh Castle in the background.

After all, who would want to leave someplace like this? The only thing that got me through it was the thought of seeing Lala, and then it struck me that I was going to Paris. Paris, where I can kinda speak the language. Those prospects made me happy, as the last countries I have flown to (Spain, Denmark, Germany) I have not been able to speak the language, or speak it upon arrival.

"French, a language that makes sense."

Friday afternoon, Lala came to meet me at the airport, and all that was wrong in the world was righted again because I was with one of my closest friends, and together we fought our way through the hordes of French people streaming in and out of Châtelet. Châtelet is indeed a nightmare of a station, as after we had disembarked the train from the airport, we realized that we needed the metro ticket to get out of the station. Silly me, I was too preoccupied with my baggage and extra clothing items to look after my ticket - there were ticket booths on the other side of the barriers, but no way to get to them. However, disaster was averted when I found my ticket in my purse, and then we proceeded out of Châtelet to fight the streaming hordes of Saint-Lazare.

After dropping off my bags at Lala's host family's home in Asnières (which is absolutely picture-perfect and so beautiful in a way that is so French-country-home-finding-itself-in-the-suburbs-of-Paris kind of way), we ran down to the local boutiques and bought some flowers and real French bread. La made me take a bite of the piping hot bread - I would find it no chore to live the rest of my days on warm French bread.

Next, we took the Metro back into the center and found ourselves right beneath the Tour Jacques across from Notre Dame. We had our first croque-monsieurs and walked along the Seine, watching the Tour Eiffel flash its little search light every now and again. We even walked across one of the footbridges across the Seine, where there were tons of "jeunes Parisiens" sitting, eating, drinking, and talking on the bridge. What else were we to do but join them?

La in front of a band performing on the bridge.

Oh right, we also walked to the Louvre at night, and through the archway that is on the other side of the Louvre.

Internally reliving my first trip to Paris.

After wandering the streets of central Paris for a while, we turned around, headed home, and had a good night's rest. Saturday morning we had a real French breakfast of bread, honey, marmalade, and hot chocolate. La wasn't kidding when she said that all French people eat is bread. It is truly a staple here.

Lala had to go to a meeting for one of her classes in the Musee D'Orsay, and I had never been to that museum before, so I came along for the journey. It was a glorious hour and a half spent by myself while Lala did her headphoned, guided walking tour with her class. I saw some real beauties, but for the sake of my reader's patience, I won't post them here.

After the museum, we made our way to the artist area around Montmartre, bought ourselves some fougasses, and then ate them on the steps below the Sacre-Couer. At Montmartre, I had my first taste of French ice cream: vanilla and strawberry, the perfect combination for the sweetness of French ice cream.

After Montmartre, we passed through the cemetery nearby for a few minutes, and then were on our way to the center again to go to the Saint-Chapelle.

Lala in the Saint-Chapelle

Us in front of the Saint-Chapelle and the Palais de Justice.

To finish the day off, we took a boat tour at that beautiful time when it's not quite afternoon, not quite evening, and saw the major sites of Paris, including the most recognizable attractions in the country, the Tour Eiffel:

After the boat tour, when dusk was just setting in, we went back to Asnières, got some food from the local grocery store, had a wonderful dinner of stir-fry halibut, soup, bread, and the most delicious store-bought fondant chocolat you could imagine (if what I bought was even a fondant). We read a bit, and made an early evening of Saturday night.

On Sunday morning, we had a bit of toast, and Lala was so gracious as to accompany me to the worship service of Church, which was really cool. I thought we were going to miss it, but the Lord was on our side. Afterwards, we spent some time at the Centre Georges Pompidou and explored a Catholic cathedral nearby. Lala knew of a good falafel shop in the Jewish Quarter, and so we went over there for lunch, and I got myself a delicious French-Jewish latke, which tasted like heaven on earth. If I lived in Paris, the Jewish Quarter would be my favourite haunt because of the shops and ambiance of conviviality.

At this point, we turned towards home and Asnières, as I still needed to pack and then be on my merry way to Charles de Gaulle airport. There was a bit of work to be done on the train line direct to the airport, so I had to take a little detour, but all was well, and I'm now safely back in my little corner of the world in Edinburgh.

Mom and Dad, I didn't even have to ask what courgettes were; I already knew.

Vacation Response II

So, I'm going to spend the weekend in a faraway place across the sea, and I'm SUPER EXCITED! Yes, I just used capital lettres because I am that excited.

I've been rather sparing on the pictures in the last few posts, but I hope this weekend will make up for it.

A lundi!

Hot Chocolate, Library Cafe, and Friends

I had lunch today with a few of the friends I've made at Church, and afterwards I had coffee with another friend. It was nice to sit and chat for a while - after living in Spain for a while, I think I forgot what it was like to follow regular social convention, be aware of nuances, and be polite. I feel like today I regained whatever I had been missing.

My Expectations Are Always Waaay Too High

I was in Blackwell's today, which is the gargantuan corporate equivalent to Barnes and Noble, and I was buying a book for class. Well, two books: Kidnapped and Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson. They come in a single-volume work, so it's kinda like getting two for one, no?

While I was queuing (Did you see that? British word used!), my eye alighted on an all-too familiar book, Jon Connelly's The Book of Lost Things. As the astute follower already knows, I have already read it, and although my eager child's imagination readily devoured the back cover and then the whole book, it was not satisfying in the way I had expected it to be. I wanted the characters to move with such grace that they left a trail of glowing dust in their wake, the writing to be so eloquent that I want to throw myself off the top of the cliff like the poet-bard in Martin's painting The Bard below, due to sheer ecstasy of spirit.

You may doubt that such a character can ever produce a result like that. I may be exaggerating a smidgeon, but Mara from Mara Daughter of the Nile was like that for me. She sparkled, and not in a vampire-like way. Think of Philip Pullman's golden dust from His Dark Materials Trilogy combined with Tinkerbell's pixie dust, and then add some of the glowing scenery from David Cameron's Avatar, a few 4th of July sparklers for good measure, and then you begin to get close to what I have in my head.

Connelly's book held such promise, but in the end it fell apart for me. It was still beautiful, but it did not sustain the expectations I had for it.

Aside from Connelly's book on the table, I saw another: The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart. Listen to its title in your head, say the name aloud. Cuckoo-clocks catch me; I remember a friend of mine in a high school creative writing class wrote a poem about cuckoo-clocks, and she capitalised on the rich consonants of the word. Cuckoo-clocks evoke, for me, a world that is slightly askance, Lewis Carroll-like, full of imagination and childhood.

We'll see what this book has in store for me. That is, if I ever get around to reading it this semester...

Parasiempre

There were some nice things to post about today, like hanging out with some of the Edinburgh YSA, which was tons 'o fun, and getting my haircut by a nice British-Indian lady.

I also have felt like I should start writing again, or at least more frequently. I have in mind wholly re-imagining American literature and recreating the myths of America, or maybe I'll start somewhere more local like Utah, but perhaps that's a bit too ambitious for me right now. The quote from "Heart of Mid-Lothian" seems so applicable: I build lofty imagination-castles in the sky of a non-existent future, and then Disappointment comes to cull them.

From "The Heart of Mid-lothian"

"Let it once take root and it will grow so rapidly, that in the course of a few hours the giant Imagination builds a castle on the top, and by and by comes Disappointment with the 'curtal axe,' and hews down both the plant and the superstructure... she cherished such visions from day to day..."

The Montague

This is a post that got lost in publishing. It was supposed to have gone up on September 25, 2010. Well, here it goes now!

On Thursday night, after two and a half hours of Scottish dancing, two friends of mine from Butler and I went out for a drink and to find food. Our original plan was to go to McEwan's Pub to meet up with the rest of the Scottish dance club and meet them a little bit, since at least one of my friends is joining the club, and I might join, too. However, I didn't have I.D. with me, and I am under the impression that I need to prove that I am over 18 to order something from the counter, even if it is non-alcoholic. Anyway, I'd rather not get into any kind of trouble or mess, so I asked my two buddies if they would mind popping over to my flat - only two blocks from the dance hall - so that I could grab some I.D., and then we'd be on our merry way to McEwan's.

They were very obliging, and we were on our way, I got my stuff, and then we were back on the street, looking for the pub. I thought I knew the way, but we ended up at McEwan's Brewery, not "McEwan's Pub." My flat wasn't too far away, so we went back, double-checked the name and the location (it was literally just a block away), and then we were off again, this time into the darkening night and soft rain.

We walked up and down the street, passed several pubs, and couldn't find it, little knowing that the full name of the Ale House on South Clerk Street is "McEwan's Ale House." In the end, we went to the pub on the corner called The Montague. I'd been there once before on my building's pub crawl, but it was crowded, and I couldn't absorb the atmosphere of the place. However, the three of us sat at a little table, complete with a candle, under the gaze of Sean-Connery-as-James-Bond on a movie poster. There were other vintage movie posters, bookshelves, high ceilings with molded pieces where the wall met the ceiling, even wainscoting and a few boardgames scattered across the bookshelves. Contemporary design adequately re-imagined the Victorian era architecture and style to make The Montague: every little boy's and girl's Victorian dream without actually having to live in Victorian times (with what passed for indoor plumbing, no temperature control, cholera, typhoid, corsets that made the wearers faint, refrigeration?, etc).

Not only was it a place for gatherings and a refuge for students, it felt like a place for students - and anyone else who wanted to pass an hour or two there. The Montague has couches and tables, friendly staff, really good music - nothing can beat New Order for aptly fitting the atmosphere. It was youthful, mature without being overbearing, and trendy without the shallow vicissitudes of trendiness, like it had caught and preserved a millennial feel.

I had my carrot cake and my Appletiser, good friends, and contentment. Life was, as it always is and forever will be, on the whole good.

A Grace Note in the Stream of Things II

They could play this with a touch more soul, but it's not bad. They still capture some of the love and longing of the music, some of the pain.

A Grace Note in the Stream of Things I

I am going to take a little grace note in the midst of living abroad and tell you about some really neat things that I want to share with people. These are things that I think people should know about, and instead of giving you a long list of things to look at, I'll be posting them every now and then in a series.

A Glass Half Empty (Original Song) - Pete Wylie

Note: I think I saw this kid at Folk Soc night at Edinburgh Uni during Fresher's Week... I was sitting near his foot.