Whenever my friends Nigel and Gwynne come up to visit London, I know I am in for a good time and so it was when they and Gwynne’s brother Mike spent a delightful afternoon with me. But. there were more adventures this week.
The Esoterik Collection
Nigel, who I mentioned above, introduced me to the Esoterik Collection several years ago. It is dedicated to modern Italian Art. Today’s visit was to view an exhibition of the work of Claudio Parmiggiani, an artist whose career spans over 50 years of Italian modern art. In some works he used smoke and soot creating etherial images. After the exhibition, I climbed the (many) stairs to view the permanent collection.
Parmiggiani
Esoterik Permanent Collection
This outstanding collection of modern Italian art includes these thought provoking works.
Good Times on the Canal
My friends Nigel and Gwynne, and Gwynne’s brother Mike joined me for a day of fun along one of London’s canals. The visit included the Canal Museum, lunch at a great little cafe and a walk along the canal where we observed numerous long boats that folks live or holiday on.
The Blue River Cafe
We stopped at the Blue River Cafe on Northdown Street in Kings Cross. Great food, great service and a pleasant atmosphere. Here are my friends enjoying the cafe.
Mike, Nigel and Gwynne. Some of the best people I know.
The Canal Museum
Small museums are like little gems. The Canal Museum could be easily overlooked. I’m glad we visited. In this case, we sometimes forget how important canals were in the period before rails linked rural and urban locations. The museum contains a replica of a canal boat showing cargo and living space.
This picture above shows the colorful pots and cans that canal boats are known for.
Working on the Canal
We saw an ice pit where canal workers would load huge blocks of ice to be delivered to resaurants and homes with ice boxes, the precursor of refrigerators and freezers.
After we left the museum, we took a stroll up the canal path back towards Saint Pancras International where my friends were getting their trains home. Here are a picture of canal boats and the path.
My next blog will include a visit to another favorite museum. Here are a few late August roses from the front of that museum.
The flight from Miami was pretty smooth and arrival was timely. It’s funny how quickly you get over the annoyance and inconvenience associated with a long trip. My case the fact that my flat was ready and I could immediately collapse into a nap probably helped.
What’s Taken So Long?
So here I am two weeks in to the journey, and this is my first post. It has been a great two weeks, but I just got a bit complacent.
Also, I had a hard time figuring out how to upload photos to my new tablet. I decided to start things off on a slow and easy pace. Above are a few pictures of the magnificent old trees in Brunswick Garden which is just a short walk from my flat. These large urban green spaces are one of my favorite things about London.
While having brunch on my first morning I noticed this peculiar renovation technique. I assume its done to save as much as possible of the original exterior features of an older building but it struck me as odd to look up at this grand old building and see that the top story and roof were gone.
Dylan in London
On a sunny afternoon, I ventured south of the river to the Old Vic Theatre to see “The Girl from the North Country,” a musical drama featuring the songs of Bob Dylan. Hearing Dylan’s lyrics and music in this format was stunning and a reminder of what a brilliant body of work he has created.
Here are photos of Ryan Heenan and Rebecca Thornhill (left) and Justine Kehinde. The story takes place during the Great Depression and demonstrates the universality of the themes Dylan has written about.
Gardening Through History
My next adventure took me back to the British National Library, once again, my nearby neighbor in Bloomsbury/Kings Cross, and always the home of wonderful things.
The exhibit is called “Unearthed,” and it tells the story of gardening in the UK and its former colonies. It tellsl us too, of how diverse plants and methods passed among the places the British came in contact with over the centuries.
The entrance to the exhibit.
The MultiMedia screens made this into a virtual experience.
Plants that are great food sources. The library’s extensive book collection enhanced the exhibit.
Making the point of the importance of community
This box allowed plants from the other side of the earth to be maintained alive on the long sea journey to England.
Til The Stars Come Down
This was a well-acted drama centered, apparently, on the marriage of a young woman from the North of England in the former mining country and a Polish immigrant. Her family is mildly racist and has festering woumds from Margaret Thatcher’s mine closings. Underneath it there is boiling cauldron of family secrets involving sexual relationships among the family. It was staged well with seats for audience members on three sides of the stage. They became extras during some scenes. For me, the themes in this play have become too common in the West End, sort of like “the Troubles” define much Irish theatre for the last several decades.
Funny Sidelight to this Theatre Visit
I had dressed in black trousers and a dark blue button up shirt and had a seat on the aisle. As I do when I sit in the aisle seat, I will stand against the wall to allow the rest of the row easier access in the minutes before the show begins. Unbeknownst to me, I was dressed exactly like the ushers and other front of the house staff, so I kept getting asked if I sold programs or where seats were. The young usher near me and I had some good laughs about it.
A Visit to Queens Park
One of the things I love about London are the small and large parks that let the city breathe. One of these is Queens Park where I noticed these two statues.
The first is of Queen Charlotte and the second is to honorwomen and children who have been to the local children’s hospital.
The Tate Modern Takes Me Back to Australia
The Tate Modern is exhibiting the works of artist Emily Kame Kingawarray who lived in the ancesteral land Alhakar in Australia. Her work reflects the region, its land, plants, animals and ecosystems. Upon seeing the first of her works, I felt transported back to Australia. Here are a few examples of her incredible work.
Herbert SmithFreehill Kramer Portrait Award
These are three of the finalists.
Some Random Photos from the First Weeks
These were taken at various locations including the Victoria and Albert Museum, The National Portrait Gallery and outs the British Library.
This ends the first blog of this year’s sojourn. I apologize for any glitches. I am still fighting with my Galaxy Pad and trying to understand the new editing and other tools in WordPress. I hope you enjoy this scatter shot offering.
New Photos in the CafeNew Photos in the CafeLatest Stage Bouquet
I must say that three-times lucky was how I felt after the Škampa Quartet’s performance at Wigmore Hall. This incredibly talented Czech string quartet played Mozart and Brahms and provided a lovely Czech traditional song as their encore. Two violins, a viola and cello, all played with great expertise provided an hour of absolutely delightful music for a rapt audience. Like most of these concerts, this one was a full-house of classical music fans.
The Silk Roads
I am fortunate to be staying in a flat very close to the British Library, a large modern brick building with a lovely courtyard in front that holds its own against its Victorian neighbor, the Saint Pancras Hotel and the massive Saint Pancras International Train Station with which it shares two city blocks on Euston Road in London. The library gathered an incredible collection of manuscripts on various materials and objects of interest that demonstrated how the international trade that was carried out along the silk roads, brought together people, languages, and cultures from around the ancient world.
An ancient Persian prayerA letter written by a merchant about turmoil in ChinaAn official almanac from 978.A votive painting.A 10th century sutra of the 10 kings
The cultures and lives the above items represent cover great portions of the ancient world. There were also things like a letter from a wife, left behind in a silk road trading town when her husband returned to China and never came back for her or their daughter. They were left in dire straits. As real as life is today.
The Wallace Collection
Culture has just been pouring out of my ears recently. I decided to revisit the wonderful Wallace Collection on another dreary day.
The Wallace Collection is in Hertford House on Manchester Square. I have written before about this unique collection of furniture, sculpture, china, paintings, all in the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Herford. The townhouse has an interior courtyard that has been covered to keep out the elements and turned into an elegant restaurant. Here are just a few of the incredible pieces you will see when you visit this wonderful place.
I could spend hours just looking at the furniture and objets d’art. That china cabinet alone knocks my socks off every time I see it.
Then there are the paintings.
Contemporary artist Flora Yukonovich Canaletto (18th century)J. Hackaert (17th century)Rembrandt self-portrait in case you weren’t impressed already.
I’ve covered a lot of ground here. So, I am going to save my return to the Esoterik Collection for my next installment.
Another Sunday morning concert at Wigmore Hall. As I arrived, it occurred to me, as it has before, how
unprepossessing it is from outside. It’s almost easy to miss among the porticos and fancy fronts of the buildings nearby. The world inside, especially for these morning concerts, though, reminds me of how special it is.
This Sunday’s performers were the Zemlinsky Quartet. They are a Czech quartet who met as students in
Prague. Their website explains their name with these words, “Zemlinsky Quartet is named after the Austrian composer, conductor and teacher Alexander Zemlinsky (1871-1942), whose enormous contribution to Czech, German and Jewish culture during his 16-year residence in Prague had been underrated until recently. His four string quartets (the second one being dedicated to his student and brother-in-law Arnold Schönberg) belong to the basic repertoire of the ensemble. Since 2005, the quartet has maintained a special relationship with the Alexander Zemlinsky Foundation in Vienna.”
The program on Sunday was Mozart’s String Quartet No. 18 in C andDvořák’s String Quartet in E flat. Each work was performed to perfection. The Mozart was more familiar to me and so it was easier to get lost in the music and enjoy the flow of stringed instruments. The Dvořák work was great. It was new to me, but I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
It was a chilly day and surprisingly cooler after the concert than before. I did catch up with two of my local friends in the afternoon at Caffe Tropea. One of my luckiest accomplishments this trip has been connecting with this group of folks of regulars. These two ladies are delightfully forthright and love to tease me about American views. I love to tease them about the outlandish things that the British press say about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (aka Harry and Megan). The more we talked and laughed, the more I learned about our similarities and differences. Their country is a constitutional monarchy with its unwritten constitution and its social democracy that has been controlled by the Conservative Party (the Tories) for much of the last 50 years. We live in a democratic republic with a written constitution and a capitalist economy with aspects of social welfare programs at a much lower level of coverage than theirs. Our national government has been split between the two major political parties for much of the last 50 years and the 50 State governments are split, as well. I don’t think it is easy for either Americans or British to fully appreciate how different our two societies are in terms of how basic rights of citizenship are defined, exercised and accepted. The postwar generations also encountered vastly different lives. We in America were not rebuilding a bomb-ravaged infrastructure or playing in bomb craters or bombed out buildings for years after the war. We were living a different life. As I found in my years with Sister Cities in Alexandria, Virginia and Caen, France, there is no better way to understand people’s lives than to spend time with them in their own space. It is always time well-spent.
Monday was another chance for me to learn more about the United Kingdom from other friends and then to see a preview performance of a wonderful new musical play. But the day started with a quick Tube trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. I’ve mentioned it before as my favorite museum and sometimes a just need a little “V&A” fix. It never fails. Upon entering the Exhibition Road Entrance, I was looking over the schematic layout on the wall. One of the outstanding volunteers asked if I needed help and we ended up having a delightful ten-minute chat covering the recent funeral of Her Late Majesty to favorite pieces in the museum and, of course, the perennial topic, the London weather. I then spent some time enjoying some galleries before going to my “happy place,” the Cast Courts that, as Wikipedia describes them, contain “reproductions of some of the most famous sculptures in the world. Most of the copies were made in the 19th century and in many cases, they have better resisted the ravages of time, 20th-century pollution and over-zealous conservation than the originals.” Afterwords, I returned home and caught up with two other friends for coffee at Caffe Tropea. These two, are politically aware and astute and gave me a great tutorial on The Labour Party from the second half of the 20th to now, and the beginning of their annual conference. We have had many great discussions on the subject of our two political systems over these two months. What a great addition, they too have made to my life.
The evening took me to a great theatre in Covent Garden, the Donmar Warehouse. Where the audience sits around three sides of the stage and there is no proscenium arch or curtain. I joke that this is the theatre where I made my West End debut. I was asked to hold up one end of a banner unfurled by an
You would never know it was a world class theatre.
View from the back of the stage.
an actor during a production of a Shakespeare play here. The preview I was here to see was “The Band’s Visit.” It is a simple sounding story of an Egyptian police department’s concert band, invited to play at the opening of an Arab cultural center in an Israeli city. A miscommunication causes them to travel to a tiny desert town with a name one letter different from the big city. The cast was wonderful, the music was incredible.
Alon Moni Aboutboul and Miri Mesika lead a cast that turn the stage into that tiny desert village. Ms. Mesika, an Israeli singer and actor has a voice that evokes the mood of the songs in a way that is heartbreaking and bittersweet. Mr. Aboutboul is the leader of this group of musicians, but also a police officer first, conflicted in his roles, and shows it perfectly as his performance continues. The musicians who are on stage much of time must, and do, have some acting talent and some of the actors must play instruments. The success of all is a credit to them. This was a truly delightful evening at the theater. The Donmar also always manages to have a very friendly and personable staff which adds to the ambience of the evening. I understand this show started as a movie. Definitely worth seeing.
Mark In London 