L u n a t a l k

I think I saw every single piece of artwork on display in the Tate Museum today. I could happily have spent longer there if there had been more to see. What was there was both fascinating and beautifully curated. I became of fan of Francis Picabia. He tried on artistic movements like new shirts - constantly changing, impossible to label. And he did it at least partly as an artistic statement in itself - ridiculing the pretentious seriousness of the art circles he moved in.

He even reinvented his own paintings, painting new elements over old, changing styles, content, meaning.

I have the same tendencies in my own work. I’ve been criticized for not clinging to a particular style - not being classifiable. There is some justification to the critique. One style can take years to fully comprehend and master. But I can’t resist the lure of exploration and many of my songs deliberately poke fun at the originals. I also reinvent old songs. “Circle of Stuff” started life as a rock anthem. Today it is a lively samba. The lyrics for “Spice it Up” were recently written over as the more controversial “Brazilian Wax” (though both versions have the theme of keeping sex adventurous over time). But enough about me.

After exhausting the Tate we moved operations to the Victoria & Albert Museum in search of artifacts from the 13th century for book research. We found a few interesting things - including beautiful reproductions of the tombs of King John and Eleanor of Aquitaine (one of the most interesting women ever).

A longish walk back to the hotel through Hyde Park and a brief respite before looking for dinner.

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Anyone like to take a guess? I have an idea of what it might mean, given where it was posted. I wonder what the penalty for fly tipping is?

The dogs in Avebury must be very clever.

Other random notes:

A small, ancient Greek drawing in the British Museum was amusingly described as honouring the spririt of self-perpetuating fecundity. Sounds a little better than just labeling it “guy giving himself a BJ.”

I’m getting a little better at looking right instead of left before stepping into traffic. And speaking of wandering off the pavement, I have to give credit where credit is due. I talk about how I like to just follow my nose on vacations, but part of the reason I get away with it is because Mike with all his maps and printouts is calling after me - Wait! Come back! Turn left!

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In case you missed it, they made a musical of Lord of the Rings. And if you did miss it, you might possibly want to just keep it that way. We saw it last night at the Drury Lane Theatre by Covent Garden in London’s West End.

My first reaction, on hearing the attempt had been made was, “wait… what?” How could the sweeping story that took three long novels be told in a single sitting - with song and dance numbers? I’m here to tell you, it hasn’t happened so far.

The story was so telescoped that, aside from a few tender moments between Frodo and Sam, the characters could do little more than shout, stentoriously declaim or give backstory. The acting was wooden - even amateurish in places (shame on you Elrond), even beyond the limitations of the script. In the best musicals, the songs either move the story forward (Cabaret, Chicago) or are musically so memorable as to be worth the stop (West Side Story). In the worse musicals, they are interruptions where everything stops so an obligatory song can be delivered. The songs in this show were not only forgettable (there was one nice one by Sam, longing to sit by the fireside) but committed the sin of stopping the story dead in its tracks every damn time.

The star of the show was the staging. The scale is staggering - a £1million, 40-ton rotating stage lifts and falls in 17 different sections, 50 actors, 19 musicians, 60 crew working behind the scenes for every performance, 504 costumes and 256 costume changes each show, for starters. The staging extends to the first balcony, where we were seated. There was smoke, lasers, orcs in the aisles. Pippin leapt directly over my seat. Galadriel descending into Lothlorian was pure Sarah-Brightman-meets-Cirque-du-Soleil-over-the-top. We left the theatre humming the sets. (I wish I could say that line was original, but it was too apt not to steal)

However, a friend pointed out to me that she liked the thought of being the filling in a Boromir/Faramir sandwich. It’s a tasty thought.

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Lord, I wish my body could figure out when to sleep!

Spent the whole morning at the British Museum where they have the Rosetta Freaking Stone and the Elgin Freaking Marbles. I was amazed at how little security there was. It’s wide open, no one checking bags. People walking amonst the priceless relics with backpacks and tote bags. Same at the National Gallery, where we whiled away the afternoon in the company of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Monet and too many others to name.

We’re staying at the Rhodes Hotel just north of Hyde Park. The proprietor is a voluble Greek with bushy eyebrows (is there any other kind?) who badgered me into eating more breakfast than I had intended to and regaled us with stories of air conditioning installations while we charmed him with our tiny smattering of Greek. There’s no elevator and we’re on the third floor (which lists significantly to the right as you enter). The walls are decorated with amusingly rendered Greek friezes and there’s an actual model of the Parthenon suspended over the check in desk. Shades of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Couldn’t be more pleased!

Tonight we’ve got tickets to see The Lord of the Rings, the Musical. I can’t imagine how it’s possible to tell the story and sing the songs in under three hours, but soon I’ll know and I’ll pull no punches in my review tomorrow. Off to the theatah!

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I always thought Stonehenge was like, 18 inches tall. Turns out it’s enormous.

Actually, that’s not what they lied about. I thought I had signed up for one of the special “inner circle” tours - before tourist hours, touch the stones, human sacrifice at sunrise, etc. But somehow we got picked up for the day tour - stay on the path, don’t even thinking of stepping over the wire. Under other circumstances, I might have sulked. (And I can be a world class sulker. Ask anyone in my family.) It turns out, though, that Candide might not too far off the mark when he said that if this is the best world, anything that happens must be for the best. If Mike had known it was not going to be an inner circle tour, he would have refused to go at all. But the day-long tour included extra stops that easily made up for the disappointment. Starting with:

Avebury. The stone circle in Avebury is the largest in the world (the circle, not the stones). There’s a church smack in the middle of it - built from the broken remnants of circle stones - purposely, of course, to make a point. You can touch the stones, as long as you’re willing to tread sheep shit to get to them. Nick, our guide showed us how you can dowse the energy fields between the stones with copper dowsing rods. (He’s also a big fan of crop circles and cheerfully bullshitty explanations proving every interesting expression somehow originated in medieval England) I tried the rods and the effect was eery. As you walk between stones, it feels as if a strong magnet is pulling the ends together, or apart, or even spinning in circles. I suspect it’s actually caused by unconscious hand tipping. It doesn’t take much movement for gravity to pull the long rod in the direction it’s tipping. But of course it’s much more fun to speculate about energy fields.

Stonehenge. What can I say? It’s freaking amazing, even from behind the wire. The setting is open and exposed and the wind was unrelenting, but that and the threatening skies seemed appropriate. I wanted to walk amongst the stones and touch them, but it was enough to see them with my own eyes. There will be more pictures later.

Salisbury Cathedral. The most magificent cathedral I’ve ever seen. There’s a wonderful book about it (fiction) called Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, that I’m now desperate to reread. Nick told us the research and history presented in the book is very accurate.

Old Sarum. There’s not a great deal to see anymore beyond low stone walls and embankments. The motte and bailey layout is clearly visible - nice to get an idea of scale, since there are two motte and bailey castles that figure in our novel. I can recommend the book “Sarum” by Edward Rutherford. It’s the best of his several weighty tomes. How weighty? you ask. Well, if you were to make a life-size replica of Stonehenge out of Rutherford novels, you wouldn’t need more than a dozen or so. Still, it’s a good read. I might have had more to say about Sarum the place if it hadn’t been raining on us so insistently.

All and all, a wonderful day. Now to be capped off by a nice hot bath. Ahhhh!

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There’s always at least one thing one forgets when packing for a trip. For us, it was some device to keep track of what time it is. I know they make things like that, but you’d never know it to look in our gear. I do have this laptop, but it’s a bit cumbersome when lashed to the wrist.

Normally, I’m fine with not knowing what time it is on vacation. What does it matter? In fact, it’s one of the POINTS of getting away. Loosen up and let go of schedules. Who cares if it’s lunch time or not? The question is: are you hungry?

However, there are situations where a time piece is a damned useful bit of technology. Theatres seem to be rather insistent about curtain times, for example. And when one wakes in the middle of the night and wonders how one is doing on readjusting one’s internal Big Ben, a quick bleary glance at the glowing dial of a clock is a tad easier than crawling out of bed and firing up the old computer.

I’ve always felt it’s best to get on local time as quickly as possible. Two years ago, we landed in Athens at 10 am after about nine hundred and thirty seven hours in transit. We dropped our bags at the hotel and lit out for the acropolis. Did the same here (except with the Tower of London standing in for the acropolis). I managed to keep my face out of the soup until 8 pm. Late enough for a first night, I think - especially considering we’re going to be up early for the Stonehenge sacri… tour. Passed out in bed and woke, wide awake, sometime later in darkness. Was it near dawn? I felt pretty rested. No clock. Got up to check the time on the computer. Ten p.m.? Can that be right? Two fucking hours of sleep?

Ah me, might as well blog.

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Still traveling. The airport in Minneapolis was shut down for storms just moments after we took to the air. All day I’ve been surrounded by fellow travelers who are returning home after visiting old friends. Are we the only ones who leave home in the fall? It’s become a habit: dump the kids at college and hit the road. This is our fourth such escape; perhaps the last that involves child-dumping. They’ll be on their own soon.

I have enjoyed my companions tales of their visits. It’s heartwarming to know that old friends are still deemed worthy of cross-country journeys with all the hassle, expense and TSA humiliation that entails.

We’ll be in London in a few hours. According to the map, we’re heading off the edge of Canada and over the Atlantic. It’s starting to seem real - surrounded by red passports and pommy accents. Even so, London still seems buried behind an impenetrable curtain of fog. I can wait. A little sleep might let a few patches of sunlight through.

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The airport shuttle stopped in front of a sour-faced doughy matron in a fussy red sweater and heavy jewelry. The others of us in the van had been happily comparing travel notes but she made eye-contact with no one, heavily took a seat and headed off the remotest possibility of conversation by immediately burying her nose in a book. Ok. Not everyone is headed out on holiday. No problem letting her have her privacy. A little later I sneaked a peek over her shoulder and saw she was reading a romance novel called “An Invitation to Sin.” Who knows what passions lurk beneath glum exteriors? A book title can be a tiny window.

Last week our band played a showcase at a local arts fair. At one of the booths, they were giving away free new books. I picked up Widdershins by Charles de Lint and tucked it away for the plane. I’m not generally a big fan of fantasy and this book is a little earnest and harrypotterishly over-magicked, but the richly-imagined dark other world it creates reminds me a bit of Neil Gaimon’s Neverwhere and there’s an edgy erotic fizz to it that kept me turning the pages for most of a very long flight. Despite some heavy-handedness, I like the way you, the reader are dropped midstream into lives already in progress and you have to scramble some to get your bearings. I really felt like these people had lives outside the pages of the book. It’s something I hope to acheive in my own writing. Mike is rereading Stranger in a Strange Land. But mostly because he hasn’t found something new to read. Does peeking in these windows reveal something?

The lady across the aisle is reading The Secret – as unconscionable a load of new-age drek as has ever been written. But she’s wearing a fabulous low-cut purple top that I would sell out my first grade teacher for.

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Friends have been asking me if I’m excited about this trip. It’s hard to know how to answer. I feel like I ought to be. Doesn’t one get excited about a grand vacation? But truthfully, I don’t anticipate travel much. Just enough to make sure there are plane tickets and places to stay. But anticipation of the actual joys, frustrations, surprises, discomforts, thrills and adventures of exploring a new place? I suppose if I put my mind to it I could work up a lather of expectations, but it doesn’t seem real yet. Does that imply a jaded attitude? I’ve hardly traveled enough to be inured to its charms. A lack of imagination? I’ve been called many things in my life, but unimaginative has never been one of them. I think I just prefer to let the flotsam of adventure wash up on the shore of now, in its own time.

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For the next two weeks I’ll be in the UK. We’re ostensibly going to research our novel. Luckily, that will require a thorough investigation into local ales. I’ve got my camera and laptop stowed and plan to blog from the road. More soon, but now, to the airport. Always an adventure!

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