The Great Flood

I had a kerfuffle with an appliance this week.

It was my intention for this entry to recount my tour of Buckingham Palace this September, and also to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral for next week’s blog.  But these things have to wait another couple of days and I will now explain why.

Here are the facts leading up to the rumpus as best as I can recall them:

1.) I did open an umbrella in the apartment.  It’s a little temperamental, the umbrella, and I was going out in the rain; I wanted to make sure it was working properly.

2.) I walked under two ladders when I accidentally wandered through a construction zone. (I’m sure you can relate.)

3.) One of the workers at said construction zone yelled something inappropriate in Romanian in my general direction (I’m surmising it was inappropriate because he said it in Romanian.) It might have been a curse. Or, maybe he was just saying “Hey, that woodenheaded blonde girl just walked past all of this dangerous machinery and then under two ladders. Maybe we should call someone.”

4.) I dropped my cell phone and said the f-word in front of a rabbi at Tesco.

5.) Still blushing from shame, I then walked back under the same two ladders and through the same construction zone, where the same guy again contributed whatever it was he felt the need to contribute in Romanian. (Don’t you judge me, it was the fastest way back to my flat.)

Now the rumpus:

I had left the washing machine on when I was out on my errand, and when I came back inside, I slipped and fell on my…posterior. My head hit the floor, but not hard. Still, as I lay there, momentarily dazed but acutely aware that the floor was soaked, for the shortest of moments, I considered the possibility that this was a pool of my own blood and I was about to die. I lifted my hand in front of my face and discovered it was not covered in blood, but sudsy water.

The last bucket of flood water & tears, the ladder I flew up to shut off the electricity and of course, the culprit looming in the background. (You can see where the box next to it took on water.)

I said the phrase “Oh my God” at least eight times as I stood, looked around, and saw that the hallway, the reception, my bedroom, and probably the bathroom (couldn’t tell for sure because that door was closed) were covered in water which was pouring out of my washer/dryer. (In Britain, washers and dryers are often the same machine, to conserve space. It’s a pretty good idea, you know, combining an electric dryer with the same machine that swishes gallons and gallons of water around. Coming soon: the bathtub/toaster!) Anyway, because my electricity sometimes goes out, I’m fairly adept when it comes to whipping out the ladder, climbing it, and making it up to the power box.  This time, I practically flew.

With the electricity safely shut off, the washer stopped turning my apartment into a swamp, and I was able to proceed to frantically call my lettings manager and run to find a towel to begin what would be a four hour clean-up.

But of course, I couldn’t find a towel, because they were all in the washer. I was washing all of my towels.  So instead, I used a washcloth and a bucket.  I did strategize a little; I started along the bases of the walls to try to prevent the water from leaking down them to the distiller/restaurant below me, I flipped all of the chairs over onto the tables, and I made sure nothing valuable was on the floor. Other than that, though, the only thing to do was dunk the washcloth at a random spot on the floor and wring it out into the bucket as fast as possible, and then dump the bucket out in the sink whenever it became too full. It was like a relay race.  A hellish, lonely relay race.

After the bulk of the water had been cleaned up, I used three rolls of paper towels to dry the remainder.  Then I collapsed onto the couch, called my dad, and cried.

Finally dry. “Hey, your floor smells like clean laundry.”

 The lettings manager had a plumber come first.  The plumber was, ironically, Romanian.  He said there was nothing wrong with the water supply itself, which was a good thing.  The next day, which was Friday, an appliance guy came (not Romanian), and he said a couple parts needed to be replaced. He referred to it as a “time bomb.” I emailed the lettings manager to let her know the situation, and didn’t hear back by the end of the day, as expected. I’m hoping it can be fixed at some point next week, but the good news is, miraculously, NOTHING was destroyed or damaged beyond repair, except a couple of boxes I had on the floor that were holding a few of my books, which are wet, obviously, but readable. And no complaints from the restaurant, which I’m taking to mean there was no damage incurred down there, either. Thank God. And that clean-up was one heck of a workout. So that’s nice.

I wasn’t able to visit St. Paul’s because the past couple days have been spent waiting for the plumber and appliance repairman to arrive and take a look. Also, I have to have a piece ready to workshop for Monday, and I’m nowhere near ready, so the rest of my evening and the whole day tomorrow will be dedicated to changing that.  But I will, eventually, see that cathedral.  And I will not be walking under any ladders or swearing at religious higher-ups in the meantime.

Soggily yours,

AC

Tate Modern

If you have always wanted to see boxes with lights in them and scrap metal hanging from a ceiling in the SAME building, look no further than Tate Modern!

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be stoned but aren’t stupid enough to follow through, or if you haven’t had a nightmare in awhile and are feeling nostalgic, then I highly recommend visiting Tate Modern.

On the ground floor, there are a couple exhibitions which are easily categorized as interactive. They all have the same tone, and they produce, on the whole, the same unsettling feeling. For example, there is one room that is totally in the dark save an old fashioned film projector that flickers like a reel has just ended, sort of like seeing a strobe light through venetian blinds. The entire room is filled with thick smoke that smells very distinctly like chalk dust. It feels like walking through a black and white world. But the eeriest thing about that room is the other patrons, because their striped, flickering shadows are visible here and there in the smoke as they walk around.  It immediately evokes those old Hitchcockian horror scenes when shadow of the villain first appears in the fog.

Tate Modern has, to the best of my knowledge, six floors, and I visited all of them.  The ground floor was by and large home to the best exhibitions save a piece or two on other floors. I came to a room that had a huge line (or queue, as they call it here) of people waiting to see what was inside three long, rectangular, wooden boxes with peepholes affixed to them. I waited twenty minutes to finally get a turn and see…a different colored reflector light in each of them. Imagine looking at a bicycle brake light through a telescope, and you get the idea. I was pretty pissed. The majority of the works I saw were like this, with one splendid exception, a piece called “Tree of 12 Meteres” by Giuseppe Penone, an artist who took two enormous industrial, rectangular beams of wood and retraced the natural knots left in them to carve out reliefs of trees. It’s made out of what was once a real tree, then turned into a wooden beam, and then carved back into a real, different tree in the round. It is awesome, and somewhat hyperreal, to recreate natural beauty from something man took from nature.

Giuseppe Penone’s “Tree of 12 Meteres” (1980-2). Easily one of the coolest works housed at Tate Modern.

The rest of my two hours at Tate Modern were spent trying not to outwardly convey my disappointment when looking at other pieces (Let me put it this way: shredded aluminum hanging from the ceiling was one of the more impressive works.)

I admit I’ve always more or less struggled with learning to appreciate modern and conceptual art. Often I find it so vague and lacking in any sort of tenor that it is, to me, essentially non-art. Something that is so self-aware comes across as condescending and trying too hard at the same time. A paradigm of non-art. Maybe that’s the point. But I tend to correlate visual art with some sort of aesthetic; I’m not saying it has to be expressly beautiful, but at least in some way relatable.  I don’t think that’s asking too much; I’m not petitioning for concrete meaning, or even an explanation— just throw me a bone, a point of reference, something. A huge part of appreciating art is finding a way to connect to it. I cannot relate to a clumps of gray play-doh hooked to the ceiling and scattered all over the floor. The closest thing I can liken that to is cat litter.

Fortunately, I was rewarded for pressing on when I reached the sixth floor and discovered it was not an exhibit at all, but a bar and café with a stunning view of the Thames and London. Visiting Tate Modern is worth it just for that view.

View of the Thames and St. Paul’s from the café.

Having said that, admission to Tate Modern is, understandably, free. It costs £1 for a museum map, and there are ample places to donate more, if so inclined. I also stopped by the gift shop to pick up a couple of postcards, which are reasonably priced by London standards. All things said and done, it was an afternoon well-spent for about £10, when I count the tube fare. You can’t beat that.

Millennium Bridge: Slippery and made of metal, but the view is worth the risk of breaking your neck.

Walking back to the station from Tate Modern was my favorite moment, because I had to cross the Thames via the Millennium Bridge, a slippery metal pedestrian overpass that offers stunning vistas of the river, the city, Tower Bridge, and the looming and beautiful dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. I caught a nostalgic whiff of Central Park in the winter when I passed a vendor selling roasted nuts.

I would have gone to St. Pauls but admission is a little pricey and I had to allow extra time to get ready for a party in Marble Arch. Also, I had to find Marble Arch. So I’m saving St. Paul’s for a day when I can dedicate real time to appreciate it, plus everyone I know who has visited it has made a point of stressing how bewilderingly beautiful it is.

Until then—

Non-artistically yours,

AC

 

Quick-ish Update

Tip: Cool and quintessentially London, yes, but don’t use those phone booths if you can avoid it. They aren’t often knocked over, but they are often used as toilets.

I love London. That probably goes without saying since I decided to dedicate the next year of my life to living here while I pursue my degree, so I’ll clarify by saying that I love living in London as well.  Initially I worried that perhaps it would be too much of a concrete jungle, too urban sprawl-y, but weirdly the core of London has an almost small-town feel to it.

Not that I would ever say that to a native Londoner. I’ve spoken to a lot of locals who have referred to London as the “New York City of Europe,” and I just nod. The truth, of course, is that London is nothing like New York City, and I mean that as a compliment.

The pace here is much more laid back, and though everyone has somewhere to be, politeness is a part of the culture.  Granted, Londoners aren’t exactly welcoming in a warm-hearted sort of way, but they’re approachable, and they’re kind. Twice now, people have noticed me without an umbrella in the rain (it comes on suddenly) and have shared theirs, when I’ve had to stop and ask for directions, the people I’ve asked have practically escorted me there, and I’ve lost count of how many doors have been held for me.

By contrast, my experiences in New York can be loosely summarized by having been flashed twice in the subway (separate occasions), and chased from Times Square to Bryant Park by a very tall, very angry man in an Elmo costume (long story). To be fair, I do love New York, but it isn’t exactly famous for its genteel nature.

One of the aspects about London and its people that I particularly adore is the widespread intolerance for too much concrete.  There are parks everywhere. There’s even a park across the street from my flat, where I like to read and write and, as I’ll explain in a later post, observe all the weird goings on there from my window.

London has a lot of forebearance for just about every eccentricity. People go outside wearing leopard print coats without thinking twice about it. I notice a lot more people whistling and singing softly to themselves in public, and not in an insane rocking-back-and-forth-and-talking-to-buildings sort of way. There’s just less shame in expressing one’s happiness here, I think.

And speaking of happiness, I love my postgraduate program. I’m in the fiction strand for a Masters in Creative Writing degree, and for the first time in months, I’m around people who don’t look at me like an I’m some sort of idiot when I say I’m in school to write. I really and honestly like everyone in my group. I like them as individuals, and as writers. That alone is more than I dared to allow myself to hope for.

We all go together to the same café for coffee during the break in between classes, and most of us go to the pub together at the end of the evening to actually continue talking about writing and literature. A couple have even become comfortable enough to razz me a little for being American, though I’m not the only one —there are two and a half of us. I add the “half” because one has dual citizenship, spent half her life here, and half her life in the States, and has a trans-Atlantic accent—that only counts as half in my book. But it’s just such a relief to finally be in the throes of getting to know these people, and liking what I find. I had worried about that for so long. The coffee may be terrible, but the people I drink it with are so worth it.

It’s just enough socializing for a writer, I think. By virtue of the craft, of course, writing is solitary, but couple that with the fact that I just moved to a major city 3,300 miles away from everyone I know, and you have a decent recipe for loneliness. School staves that off easily. And as for the rest of my time, I read, work like crazy on writing and sending out material for publication, and explore the city.

I’m going to try to have a new entry each week, and I’ll probably focus on whatever part of the city I chose to explore in the time that has passed since my last entry. London has so much to offer as far as inspiration goes, I’d be out of my mind to just go back and forth from my flat and school without taking advantage of all the history this place has to offer.

So, until next time—

Yours,

AC