Aliens, Stonehenge, and Mass Transit

Saturday, I braved the British mass transit system and traveled by myself to Stonehenge. It about 110 miles each way and takes 3 hours by train. But, you can't just take one train. I had to first walk 3 miles to the train station, then board a train to London, King's Cross station (the site of the '05 bombings vaguely on my mind) then, take the Victoria line of the underground to Oxford Circus, then take the Bakerloo line underground to London's Waterloo train station where I caught a train to Sailsbury then a bus out to Stonehenge. The National line of the underground looked on the map as though it went straight through from King's Cross to Waterloo but, of course it doesn't. Why do they make maps like that anyway?

Stonehenge rises up out of the English countryside as the bus rounds a corner from a rural two lane road. Chills flew up my spine the first time I laid eyes on the rocks. The plain outside of Sailsbury is higher elevation and a bit cooler than in the town. The views are incredible. As you stand up on the plain with the monumental rocks, wheat fields and grazing sheep surround you. It's a great place to sit on the grass and just be, for awhile.

I asked the locals where were all the crop circles, this year? Apparently the last one's were in June. It seems that the aliens are disgusted with England's performance in the World Cup and haven't been back since. If I were an alien, I would pick the Wiltshire wheat fields as a medium for my yard art. They are incredibly beautiful and serene.

The Trees are amazing! Maybe its because they're hundreds of years old, or maybe its because I haven't experienced a true forest in a long time, but I am completely memorized by the trees. They are the size of buildings. There is one tree in particular in front of Kings College, a horse-chestnut, that is so large that the branches have curled back down to the ground. It looks like arms reaching down to pick you up. Yesterday, I couldn't resist an ancient willow and climbed it up as far as I could. It practically bent down and picked me up. If there was one thing in Britain I could bring home, it would be these trees.

British Humor, Lectures, and the Nether-Eye

The Lectures have been fantastic in the tradition of the quirky imagination of the English. For example, I have heard talks on the act of walking as interpretation which included weird trees of London and graffiti as text, the nether-eye in "The Millers Tale," and the psychoanalytic process of transference in Anthony and Cleopatra (what is love anyway?). I had a flit of panic fly through my bones today in a lecture entitled "Making Sense of Poems" where it felt uncomfortably similar to Maja-Lisa'a advanced grammar class, but oh, oh, much more radical. No wonder there isn't an American equivalent to The Oxford English Grammar text.

This is a gentleman who walks the streets of Cambridge on important business. That's a jester's hat with bells on it by the way. I asked if I could take his pic and he said, "not if that's a Japanese camera" He's an advocate for the humane treatment of dolphins and whales and is upset with Japanese fisherman. He explained to me in vivid detail the execution of such beautiful creatures and I have to admit he has a point. I do own (shamefully) a Nikon, but was able to convince him that I would plug his cause on my blog if he allowed me a pic. A pang of nostalgia for Bisbee welled up in my chest when he said, "that camera's just not cosmic."

That's King's College in the background.

This is a fairy tent we found in the forest on the way back from Bryon's Pool. The forest was incredible. The trees drape themselves in ivy while their roots wind around their trunks like snake dens. I can see how living in such a forest inspires tales of fairies and gnomes.

St. Catherine's College

I'm at St. Catherine's College and all checked in. The classes start tomorrow. It begins with breakfast at 07:45. BTW the food here is excellent. Who knew the Brits can cook? The first lecture at 09:15 is Wordsworth versus Byron. My money is on Wordsworth however, Lord Byron may surprise. Then there are a series of mandatory lectures called plenary lectures. Tomorrow's plenary subject is "What Stories Mean." I am looking forward to enlightenment on that topic.Perhaps it would help to write them if I understood what they meant, lol. The day ends with Milton, Marvell, and the poetry of crisis. I am still lugging "Paradise Lost" around. As an after thought there is a lecture on the evaluation process. that should get us all good and terrified.

Is There honey Still For Tea?

across the pond: Loose Ends: "Forty-eight hours to go before I leave the ranch and I finally finished the last of the 'required reading.' Three quarters of the packing is..."

Today I went to the small village of Grantchester. There's a tea room there where Rupert Brooke and Virginia Woolfe used to hang out. The Orchard Tea Room is surrounded by ancient elms with acres of green lawn dotted with outdoor dining tables. Just around the corner and a mile hike into the lush Albion forest is Lord Byron's pool. The locals tell me that's where he used to woo his women.

I purchased a Dymock poets anthology today with a run down of poets (circa WWI) who lived in Gloucestershire. It includes Robert Frost, can you believe that? Are the Brits with their deep pool of poets to pull from laying claim to our Robert Frost?

I also found a book of (never before?) printed sonnets of the Bard himself from 1609. Its slated as an alternative text derived from the Notebook Sonnets. It's well documented and footnoted. S.C. Campbell who compiled the text claims the Sonnets originally had a plot and were somehow taken out of order obscuring it. Perhaps I'll get some clarity on the topic during my "Elizabethan Love Poetry" lectures. I'm not exactly a Shakespeare fan, but I thought I would make a nice gift.

Pics from the second day's long walk

First England Pics

I just love the architecture here.

My Arrival

across the pond: Loose Ends: "Forty-eight hours to go before I leave the ranch and I finally finished the last of the 'required reading.' Three quarters of the packing is..."

July 2nd, 2010. I have consumed every English delicacy known to man. I went to "The Olde Spring" pub for a lunch of salmon cakes and spring salad, then a bakery for fresh pastries, then a fish and chip shop for dinner, and topped it all off with a pint of Adams Broadside English Ale, which hit me like a brick!

My accent has been called "Californian" and made fun of by the lady in the bakery who thought it funny that I should say A-pricot instead of apri-cot.
Most people however have been extremely friendly. I shared a cab with a gentleman returning from Qatar who insisted on paying for the taxi ride without my help. I met a poet who lives on a house boat floating on the River Cam and a working class fellow that says he doesn't care who's Prime Minister because there's only a five pound difference in his take home pay either way, Torry or Labor.