OMGOMGOMG

So, I just got back from a great walk. The sky is perfectly clear, the stars are out, the night is warm... and I just walked back from seeing Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett here in Norwich, UK. I also had pictures of them both with myself on my camera, and their autographs on my playbill. Jealous yet?




It was way more than awesome. The play is notorious for being both indecipherable and over-interpreted. I've read it many times, studied it at least twice, and knew some ways this play can be interpreted, but I think I never truly understood what it meant. This performance, albeit with my two favorite actors alive today, provided clarity and a precise interpretation of what the performance meant to this show.

Many of us in the US say guh-dough, but in this performance, there was a definite GOD-ot, which really set the tone of the play to what I believe is its strongest meaning, that is, a reflection of God/Religion, Action/Morality, and basically telling a story in the context of a completely farcical one. I loved everything about the execution- except for maybe the set- but to see wonderfully developed characters playing with each other on stage, communication, dynamicism, I mean, this performance embodies what good theater is all about. What I loved is that their star power did not diminish from the actual performance, and I wasn't ever expecting Vladimir to say 'two to beam up' or Estragon to tell Lucky "You shall not pass!"

Of course, this is not the only thing I've been doing. Since it's late here in Norwich, I'll be brief. I've been to the Tate Modern, and of that I have a few short things to say. A) I really liked it when painters used paint on their canvases. At least some paint. B) Art should be artistic, not blatantly not artistic to try and be not artistic, because then it's not art by definition. C) Abstraction needs something to abstract from. D) I would say that minimalism is not in itself a style, but rather specific artists' minimizations of their own style, which is why artists who start as minimalists need to stop. Finally E) Modern Art is good so long as it is both serving a purpose and is expressive. Please don't just say "then what is art, Alex?" because we both know that no one can answer that question well.

I've also been to the Imperial War museum, which wasn't actually about wars of empire per se, but rather WWI-present. With great detail in retelling all viewpoints of all major wars Britian has been a part of, it was really interesting to examine from an American point of view, seeing as we hardly hear about the grimy details of the battle of Britian, or get to see an outside view on the Vietnam conflict, or the wars in the Middle East. An equally interesting part of this museum, however, was the massive sections devoted to both the Holocaust and Human Rights violations. Not wanting to get into details, some pretty grim comparisons could be made between the paintings and photography of the concentration camps, and the horribly gratuitous and self-deprecating 'art' at the Tate. There was a lot of thinking that went on.

I also made a stop into Westminster, where I saw Big Ben, the Abbey, and (unintentionally) a protest against the violence in Sri Lanka and also in general around the Arab world. The Abbey hosts an evening service (called Evensong) every day at 5pm, and it's the one thing I would recommend to anyone who goes to London. The choir, which is men and boys, are highly professional, and it may have been because of how long it has been since I played music myself, or maybe how long it has been since I heard professionals perform, but I know that it's a rare experience when music makes me tear up a little, and it did in the Abbey. Not many people hear that kind of choir often, but the blend of the choir, matched with the medieval style of music, in the cavernous Westminster Abbey all added up to be one of the most splendid musical moments I have bore witness to. In particular, I showed up right at 5pm, and the choir was just about to start, but they were behind the partition in the hall, meaning that they were actually facing me and about 4 other people who had just walked in as well, and as they sang their first song it felt like they were singing to just us. Having just stepped out of police sirens and political demonstrations, it was all too fitting. Beautiful moment.

Tomorrow I hop on to the train and ride back to London, where I begin the second half of my time there. Who knows what's actually going to happen. I love exploring.