Grooving the Square

This last week . . . one of the best; strong feeling of rightness. Aforementioned, Winter's Tale was a wonder. No other show shows this week, but on Friday heard/ saw a selection of the compositions of Janacek at the Royal Albert Hall . . . Taras Bulba (still my favorite) not performed, but the works were very good (and only heard on first listen, first impression, never a good way to judge a classical work) and I figure I'll grab their titles off the BBC Proms website and check them out again later. (Also some good free performances of music outside the British Library at lunch breaks or for a few minutes late afternoons before catching the tube.) As I wanted to and did, lots of walking around, nights, just vagabond-roaming where fancy fancied . . . rewarding, chilled. Know now that there are a lot of little dishes - nothing expensive, all yumyum-tasty - that I will miss: West Cornwall Pasty, this craftiness called a Lamb Donar, lots of the Bizarro-world (vaguely recognizable but distinctly different) sandwiches, and others. (Though I'm looking forward to a pastrami and swiss sandwich at home - I know they've got them here somewhere, but I haven't found them.) Hit Waterstone's bookstore again - there's a something like five-story one in Picadilly Circus, though there drama collection is oddly paltry compared to the one that's a short hike from the British Library. Went there with a Maltese architect friend (who got all dreamy-eyed over the architecture books) and picked up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the only non-project specific (directly) book I've read this summer. Very good: been devouring it on the tube, during lunch or those few stolen minutes before sleep. Oh, and leaving Waterstone's my friend was thinking about grabbing a photo outside the Malta embassy, which is across the street, but it was dark and he changed his mind with a "That's okay, no one's going to blow it up." Funny. Weekend very good. Spent Saturday hiking all around Picadilly and Oxford Circus and Trafalgar Square and farther . . . all places relatively near each other but my wandering was aimless, just for fun so I retread the same ground and took all those alleys you never take when you have to be somewhere at a specific time. Watched the Olympics on a giant screen in Trafalgar Square for about a half hour, apparently the Brits were winning a lot of gold that day (later newspapers and radio confirmed); everyone was happy - and loud. Sunday (today) wondered around the parks again - Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Sunny and right for it. Did finally get to Speaker's Corner - a hypnotically captivating place where all different sorts gather to rant and rave and save the world or your soul, whichever they think is more important - this world or the next, I guess. And one comedian speaker who looked like a diseased John Waters who basically heckled the others and taunted the audience and made parents cover the ears of their children and walk quickly away as he told filthy jokes . . . Project is going better, much. Transcribed the alterations from what I'm almost positive is a recording of a 1952 Old Vic production of Romeo and Juliet, am working through some very good texts now on almost precisely what I'm studying, and on the play I'm studying . . . UNH unfortunately doesn't have them and I can't read them all this week but the Boston Consortium does have them and hopefully I can get them real quick after I get back. Going to order them here, this week, online, to try and make this hope a reality. (The almost is good: an exact match and my work would be reduntant, too much different and my work would be difficult to contextualize.) Will be having my last meeting with my mentor this week, sadly . . . he's been such a great help and, well, he's funny too; good to chat with. Agonizing whether I should just not go to the British Library one day of the five (Monday - Friday) this week and take this off-day and go to the Globe Exhibition Center . . . Maybe. Next weekend is maybe either the Tower or Greenwich again (for the Ranger's House and Queen's Mansion) and Sunday will be for packing and Bach's Toccata and Fugue at the Royal Albert Hall. Monday fly back - mixed feeling about that and also a touch anxious - strikes will be happening at some airports and I guess even at Heathrow (where I'm leaving from) there was a glitch and a lot of lost luggage, some cancelled flights and a lot of delayed recently. Hopefully no hitches! Anyway, if I don't right soon it's because I'm enjoying myself!

Will add some photos soon!