Sleep Spent

I will be leaving for Rome on Thursday. I still have a few things to do, like get a backpack. It’s been getting colder here, too; perhaps I’ll pick up a beanie. I’ve tried beanies before, and it’s actually pretty tough to find one that looks good on me.

I have put up more pictures on the Pictures page. Westminster Abbey, my day at the Tate Modern museum and the neighborhood I’m living in here in London are all documented. Take a look.

I’ve been busy taking in all London has to offer recently. Tonight I saw a double feature of The Royal Tenenbaums and Igby Goes Down. I really loved both movies the first time (or, in the case of The Royal Tenenbaums. the first several times) I saw them, so it was nice to see them again. I was again struck by the incredible soundtracks of both films. In fact, Igby recently inspired a Song of the Week.

Last night I went to Riverside Studios to see the two movies, but I left late and then took the wrong train and then got lost. In the end, I arrived half an hour late for the 18.30 start time. They have a 15 minute latecomers policy, so instead of paying £4.50 for only one movie, I saw the theater performance of Hey You that was playing. It was really interesting: five actors playing out fragmented bits that all came together. The most interesting bit was the narration, which was done by the actors themselves when “off-screen.” It described things in film terms such as “slow fade up” and “cut to the parking lot.” It was quite funny in parts and it was fascinating seeing the actors adopt completely different personae within the same performance. It wasn’t too tough to follow becasue the different characters often had completely different accents, and of course the costume and props changed sufficiently.

In my last post I alluded to the performance of The Taming of the Shrew that I saw at The Globe. It was particularly interesting because all the actors were women. That made for some interesting kisses, let me tell you. :-) (Some of the girls in our group were a bit grossed out, I think.) The most interesting thing, though, was the fact that I totally believed that Petruchio was a man, even though I knew she was a woman. But her presence and mannarisms were such that her actual gender didn’t matter. Her acting lasted even through the curtain calls: Lauren, one of the SLO party here, is sure she got a wink as she went offstage.

The performance was amazing, and much funnier than I had imagined it would be while reading the play. Much of the comedy was physical, and I’m confident that some of it was added by the director, and wasn’t there to begin with. To underscore how good of friends Petruchio and Hortensio were, the two of them did this really involved greeting. It involved stomping and crying out in unison before giving each other bear hugs. Certainly something you had to be there for, but I think it proves my point.

I have seen stuffy Shakepeare, and this was the opposite of that. On the strength of this performance alone, I’m going to have to name this my favorite of the Bard’s plays. We’ll see how I feel at the end of the summer; we’ve got two productions of Romeo and Juliet, and one each of Pericles and A Midsummer Night’s Dream left to go.

On Thursday, I went and toured the BBC television studio complex. It was pretty neat. We weren’t allowed to take photographs, unfortunately, except for in the props room. The three or so photos I have are on the Pictures page. The neatest part of the tour, for me, was when we got to see the breaking news room, full of people. It looked very cool, all glass and stairs and open space.

I’ve also had a bit of time to add a few patches to Fire, resolve some long-standing problems on my OpenBSD machine at home and even add another song to my ongoing interpretation of We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes.

I’m going to handle a few website issues, I think, and then send out a mass e-mail and hit the hay. I’ve got a day of studying planned tomorrow.