Filed under: vie quotidienne | Tags: Complaints Department, london, moscow, paris, travel
Imagine the scene: I’m sitting on the RER D – a fast train that connects Charles de Gaulle airport with Gare du Nord in Paris. Across the aisle and laden with baggage is an old couple from Wisconsin on their first trip abroad. On the seat opposite, facing me, is a woman from Sydney who has just taken her daughter to the station, bound for a French exchange course in Brittany. We’re chatting pleasantly about this and that – Moscow, the woman’s daughter, how to get the Wisconsin couple to La Defense, etc. I’ve been up for 56 straight hours by this point, and everything seems to be outlined in very bright colors, and not a little blurry.
Suddenly, an accordion strikes up near the back of the train. As we fly across the tummocky, bare November landscape of suburban France, it suddenly comes clear to me: OH MY GOD, I’M GOING TO FREAKING PARIS!!
This was my first half hour in France.
I’m still trying to process what happened yesterday. I left Moscow at 4am, got to London by 11am, spent the day in a cell, was forcibly (ok… the people who did it were very pleasant, but the gun was very definitely in the room) put back on a plane to Moscow at the whim of some director of immigration who – contrary to what 2 of his subordinates recommended – thought there was the barest possibility I might overstay my visa, even though I have an onward ticket and have never overstayed a visa before, was led by a group of very scary-looking Muscovite goons through Domodedovo airport before standing in the freezing cold for an hour outside the guard’s shack as they drank tea from a samovar, and then finally let go with a very typical “No problem!” from the army officer on duty. (In that way I prefer the Russians to the Brits. The Brits make great show of being your friend, of speaking with you, being solicitous, acting as though they’ll let you in, etc, and the screw you over. The Russians totally ignore you and refuse to speak in anything except Russian – though, of course, they all understand English – while inspecting your paperwork to an almost melodramatic scrutiny and generally given you the impression that you’re going to be turned out into the night to starve… and then invariably turn out to be completely cool, no bribes needed.. I will take Russian immigration over UK immigration any time.) I finally got to Paris (via Moscow, London, Moscow, and Vienna) 38 hours after starting my journey.
Totally not my day(s).
I’m in Paris (truly a civilized place – with no landing cards to fill in, no metal detectors whatsoever, and… where’s the border checkpoint in the airport? I didn’t even see one! France, I salute you!) and finally alone in a hotel room… and trying to let the wall down that I built yesterday to keep back terror and possible hysterical sobbing from occurring in one or another cell in one or another country.
Tax cattle. That has hit home.
I return to NYC on 4 December. “Pour aller ou?” as the French would say.
Today I woke up on time, cleaned half my room as I said I would, went out for a 40-minute run (and consequent 3-mile walk back through Regent’s Park) and… it’s so beautiful.
The light is gorgeous this morning. There’s just that small touch of fall in the air, where the breeze is crisp, but the sun is warm. The trees have begun to change, and the green-gold and red of the leaves sparkles against the blue sky. The clouds are lovely and fluffy, and look almost as though they were made from meringue.
As I was walking back through the park I came upon a playground. There were children there, but none of them was using the swingset. I got a bit of a temptation to go on the swings, but the thought passed that maybe it would look silly for a woman grown to swing on them.
I did it anyway.
I haven’t been on a swingset in about 11 years. I’d forgotten the sensation of the wind in my hair and the cool metal of the chain between my fingers. Directly in front of me was the most beautiful clear patch of sky with just one cloud in it. The cloud looked like a little fluffy white dog playing in the grass. I think I laughed aloud.
The time has passed so easily and simply this morning. Today, I think, will be a good and useful one – where I am effective and free to work as I wish – as only I can.
Now off to bathe and take a walk down Gower Street.
I’ve just been to the West End opening of Ivanov, starring Kenneth Branagh.
What an amazing performance by the entire cast. I cannot express just how much I enjoyed the experience. Chekhov has been my favorite Russian writer – the only Russian writer I can say that I truly admire and for whose works I truly care – since I first read his story The Bet. In a way, Ivanov is similar to that. It is a tale of despair. Of self-loathing. Of… self-torture. And how that affects others. It’s a story of misery. But the characters were rendered so pitch-perfectly by author, translater, and actors… that it never becomes heavy. It never becomes gratuitous. Chekhov – and the cast – have too much faith in the audience to overblow the rendering. The playbill detailed how, alas, Chekhov was wrong to share that faith. But for those of us who have the power to empathize with Ivanov, and Sasha… and even Pavel and his horrid wife… such a vista of understanding opens up. I felt, as Aristotle would have it, pity and terror. Such pity for Ivanov, and Sasha, and the rest. And terror – I, who knew how the play ends… I spent the entire time dreading the denouement. Dreading the fact that Ivanov had to die. That he could not draw one more breath of misery and torment in this world after finally, at last, rejecting himself. The last service he could render himself, unfortunately, was death. And no one – not Sasha or anyone – could alter that.
As my theatre companion said… I cannot imagine putting myself in that head space night after torturous night for the play’s 2-month run. I’m glad that we saw it on the first night when these characters are still new and raw and fresh. And I’ll see it again 2 weeks in or so to see how the actors settle into the parts.
Technically, the show was magnificently done. Lighting, sound, music, and costuming all spot on.
I will try most desperately to get tickets to see it again, even if it means standing up for two and a half hours. When I was young, I desperately wanted to go on the stage. I never wanted to do movies or be a movie star, and I didn’t like when mother pushed me into voice-overs and print ads. But acting class… once I got over my embarrassment and became the character… that’s what I wanted to do. And all of the theatre that I’ve been seeing here – pitch-perfect renditions of Lear, Timon, and now Ivanov… it’s made me want to take drama classes again. I shall in all likelihood never go on the stage – I don’t have that sort of need to do it, or that inability to do anything else that acting requires – because I could be happy doing other things… but it’s something, nonetheless, that I want to try my hand at, at least in a classroom setting.
I’m going to try to see if I can make it back to London for the rest of the season – Derek Jacobi is in a production of Twelfth Night, Judi Dench is doing Madame de Sade, and Kenneth Branagh is directing Jude Law in Hamlet. I can’t tell you how much I want to see all of those productions. I really like Jacobi and Dench’s acting, and of course Hamlet is the be-all and end-all of my favorite plays. I’m not sure. If I can catch a cheap flight!
I’ve made plans to go to the theatre again next Friday to see some play or other – I’m not sure what yet. It’s to be a surprise, at least for a little while. But all of the amazing theatre here… god, I could really live in London for a while.
I’m just emotionally tapped out from the play – feeling that pity and terror again. God, what a thrilling night. (The before- and after-play conversation was also, I must say, excellent. What a pleasure it is to go out with a rational, intelligent, emotionally tuned-in person!)
Off now to go and continue to feel.
Most hilarious line EVAR in the mouth of Simon Paisley Day, who was splendid as Timon of Athens today at the Globe! I won’t go and see it again, as Timon isn’t at all my favorite play, but the lead was played just excellently well. (Of course it helps that even though he’s 41, Simon Paisley Day is 3/4 naked throughout the second half of the play, and is quite nice to look at, even through all the painted on “grime.” See the Globe Site for pics of the staging.) Yes, that’s me. Quite highbrow. Screw the poetry, let me coo over good-looking men. At least I’m honest about it. To tell you the truth, he was the only thing the play had going. The staging was… not so good. Lots of creditors dressed as crows being lowered down from a net slung above a stage, and bouncing around on bungee cords. That sort of craptastic gimmicky thing. The director was probably right not to trust the material, which… meh. But still, cut down on the gimmicks and let the actors work their magic. I did clap my hands quite red at the end for “Timon” as well as the actors who played his steward, Alcibiades, and Apamantus the philosopher.
As to why that line is funny, one just has to read the play. (A short synopsis: an immensely rich Athenian pauperizes himself through the largesse he showers on his friends. When his creditors come calling, Timon exiles himself and takes to the wilderness to bewail the perfidy of his so-called friends, who will have nothing to do with him in his poverty. There he dies in seething, black hatred of the flatterers that led him to his self-created ruin.) I must say that the isn’t Shakespeare’s best, but it’s not as bad as, say, Romeo and Juliet or Two Gentlemen of Verona, which are just soul-suckingly bad.
Both of the plays I’ve seen at the Globe have been excellent so far. They’re also doing Midsummer and Merry Wives this season. I hope to see the latter, but I don’t like the former play at all, so will stay away.
…re: the food in London.
I went out to the pub with some friends from class tonight. After consuming 1.5 pints of beer, part of a bacon sandwich (no. really. a bacon sandwich consisting of bacon and butter on bread), and the smaller part of an order of fish and chips, just let me say…
I’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!
Said with all good humor, of course… but when people complain about British food, they aren’t lying. Maybe I’m just going to the wrong places, but the sandwich seems to be almighty. Butter is put on everything. (And it’s put on automatically. If you go to buy a tuna sandwich, they will slather butter on both slices of bread without even asking, then heap on tuna loaded with mayonnaise.) Bacon is put on EVERYTHING. I swear to god. There are chicken and butter and bacon, tunafish and butter and bacon, butter and bacon, egg salad and butter and bacon… and the grossest one of all – what one of my colleagues had today – butter, bacon, coleslaw, tunafish with corn mixed into it, and “pickle” – which seems to be some sort of vegetable slaw in a brown-looking jelly concoction. How has the English race not died from consuming this food on a daily basis?
It’s just mind-boggling. What I want is sushi. Plain, clean, simple sushi. I want it to be on every street corner, as it is in NYC. I want there not to be butter and bacon everywhere. (God help the vegans in this city. How do they cope?) I want not to be assailed by rows of very oddly flavored “crisps” when I go to the supermarket.
Again, said with all good humor. :D There is a possibility I might get offered a job in London, but… I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to stop here, much as I would love to know the people I’ve met here better. It’s not the food, of course. I want something more exotic. Something more difficult.
Until I get an overseas post, I’ve got to figure out how to eat here. I’ve got to figure out how I can get something healthier than bacon and butter on white bread or deep-fried fish, and something tastier than porridge or pb&j every day. (I also have found no grape jelly in this city. I don’t call pb and strawberry jam a proper sandwich.)
God, I long for sushi or Thai food.
