summer 2010

This photo of Simon sums up summer 2010—lots of pool time and a deliriously large smile.

mockingjay

This morning, after I dropped the boys at golf lessons, I high-tailed it to a bookstore so I could purchase Mockingjay, the final book in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. I harbor fantasies of curling up with the book and reading until its done or until I have to make dinner, whichever comes first.

sketches of frank gehry

While I’m on summer break, I’m trying to see as many movies as humanly possible. In addition to summer blockbusters, such as Sex and the City 2, documentaries about art, architecture, and design rank high on my list of must-sees. I saw Sketches of Frank Gehry back in June and have been thinking about it ever since.

The documentary was directed and produced by Sydney Pollack. He interviewed Gehry but also made himself present in the movie. Sketches is Pollack’s first documentary, though you wouldn’t know it. The film is competent, well-shot, and structured like most documentaries of the past 20 years—conversations with Gehry are augmented by interviews with clients (including a very healthy-looking Dennis Hopper), other architects and artists, architecture critics, and friends.

Gehry is a genius, and there is simply no debating this point. It could be easy to dismiss his architecture out of hand because it is complex with unusual angles and projections. But I think that’s his genius. He’s not satisfied with 90 degree angles and straight lines. His architecture challenges the viewer’s comfort level. He’s also very competitive and struggles with self-doubt. Here is the opening scene, “What’s This Fuss About?”:

SP: is starting hard?

FG: you know it is. I don’t know what you do when you start, but I clean my desk. I make a lot of stupid appointments that I make sound important. Avoidance, delay, denial. I’m always scared that I’m not going to know what to do. It’s a terrifying moment. And then when I start, I’m always amazed. So, that wasn’t so bad.

I love that Frank Gehry has his moments of doubt. Makes me feel more human, but also lets me know that I can allow a certain amount of organization to come into the design process.

These random facts about Frank Gehry sum up the movie for me:

~huge hockey fan (he designed the Anaheim Mighty Ducks facility, the interior of which was  inspired by Ontario rinks)

~likes boats

~competitive, but struggles with self-doubt

~fascinated by the design process (from trademark “squiggle” sketches to models and finished work)

~use of models (Barry Diller compares it the molding of claywork)

~likes awkwardness, elements that are so weird they’re interesting

~the fish sculpture was an accident. Gehry’s colleagues were “replaying” the Greek temple in their work, which gave him pause. He thought temples were anthropomorphic (which I don’t see but will follow for the sake of his argument) and took back 300 million years to the fish. He started drawing fish in a sketchbook, then realized there was something in it. Next, in a separate event, Gehry was looking at a piece of formica*, which he was using in a project. He threw the formica on the ground; the broken pieces looked like fishscales, which gave Gehry had an “aha” moment and he married the two. The fish has since appeared as sculpture, lighting, and even a building exterior. It has been done in glass (Walker) and in metal (Spain).

~the moment of truth: when a painter has a blank canvas, a brush, and a palette of colors…what do you do? “what’s that first move? I love that dangerous place.”

*The architectural critic Charles Jenkins calls formica a pristine, uptight material. 

london

Returning to London was complicated. Perhaps I should have taken more time to run around—back to my old flat, let’s say—by myself. Without a doubt I should have traveled to London sooner. London with John and boys wasn’t bad, but it was different, and I was unprepared for that. So I found myself feeling bittersweet and dispirited, on occasion. But, more often, I was overwhelmed by all the people. Has London always been such a zoo? I don’t remember the crowds, but I think I knew how to avoid them. 

But we pushed through the tourists and the shoppers to show the boys this vibrant city, which was a key scene to my formative years.

We spent six hours in the British Museum. We saw everything we wanted to see (Rosetta Stone [above], mummies, Lewis Chessmen, Sutton Hoo warrior helmet, Elgin Marbles [top]), though countless treasures remain for a future visit.

Retail therapy at Persephone Books. I wish I had taken a picture of the table that displayed the staff's current favorite books—"Books We Wish We Had Published."

How do the Royal Guards keep their heads up? Those hats must weigh 50 pounds. The Tower of London held treasure for all—crown jewels for me, an armory for the boys.

One afternoon, on our way back to the hotel, I got off the tube at an earlier stop and made my way to Harrod's. The food halls are simply amazing—a labyrinthine assemblage of rooms with treats beyond your wildest dreams. Oyster bar, soda counter, pizza bar, Spanish ham bar, bakery, produce, candied fruit and roasted nut vendor, chocolates and other confections, plus a candy store, and more. 

The boys made their own retail pilgrimage to Soccer Express on Carnaby Street for jerseys, which was only fitting since the World Cup was on while we were in England. We watched as many afternoon matches as we could, from the comfort of pubs, which are family-friendly until 7 p.m.

Most London meals were taken in upscale chains, such as Wagamama (noodle shop), Masala Zone (Indian), and Pret a Manger (sandwiches). They were clean and bright (decor and flavors), conveniently located, and affordable (London is expensive and all the restaurants on my List were prohibitively expensive).

I will always love London.

glastonbury

I’m not really sure how we chose Glastonbury as a site worth visiting. Perhaps the British Heritage site had a great photo. Perhaps we were intrigued by its history—legend holds that it is Avalon. In the end, we went because it was close to where we were staying, and because I needed to see ruins. I have a thing for ruins, which I can’t yet put into words, but my love goes back twenty years to Whitby Abbey. 

                                                    

Glastonbury has abbey ruins in spades. King Arthur and Guinevere are believed to be buried here. Joseph of Arameathea walked here, allegedly. This place is rich in leylines. Though please don’t ask me to explain.

The town is fascinating. Every store holds woo-woo: crystals and buddhas and fairies and Native American talismans. Plus, you can get spiritual alignments. 

And, then just outside of town is the tor. Someone at the abbey visitor’s center gave us a hand-drawn map with a dotted line leading directly to the tor. We cut through two fields and climbed forever before we got to the steps that took us up the backside of the hill. At the top, we zipped our jackets and gazed at Wales.

Glastonbury is also the site of a significant music festival, which was to take place just a week after our trip. Four days, forty-five stages. Need I say more? On one hand, I was glad to not deal with the masses. The festival attracts over 150,000 people. Yes.  On the other hand, the 2010 line up was pretty spectacular, perhaps a bit overwhelming, even. Well, see for yourself. Seriously, who didn’t play here? See that Gorillz, Snoop Dogg, and Corinne Bailey Rae appeared on the same stage. Crazy!

standing stones

As we planned our England trip, our highest priority for sightseeing was anything Bronze Age or earlier. The UK is peppered with standing stones, stone circles, menhirs, dolmens, and quoits. The Stone Pages was an invaluable source, and it’s fun to browse even if you’re not trip planning. Once we actually started traveling, our theme changed a bit, but we still managed to see a megalithic England with an emphasis on Avebury and Stonehenge.

Before our trip, we received much unsolicited advice to visit Avebury, especially making it a priority over Stonehenge. I had seen Stonehenge and other stone circles on a previous trip to England so I was aware that there were equally impressive, but different, types of stone circles. 

Avebury covers a larger area than Stonehenge. In fact, it encompasses an entire village (above; though it's difficult to see the stones, this photo was show part of one half of the outer circle). Many of the formations are similar to Stonehenge, including the avenue of stones leading to the entrance as well as stones that are believed to have played a part in sacrifices. Avebury consists of a large outer stone circle, which once held 98 megaliths, and two smaller circles, each with approximately 30 stones. In some ways, Avebury and Stonehenge are sister sites in that their stones share the same source—the Marlborough Downs. 

This ancient tree is allegedly where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. Gnarly.

More on Avebury: This site has incredible photographs (check out the wallpaper section!) and massive amounts of information. Please visit, if you’d like to learn more.

Stonehenge is all that. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The stones are massive. Look at the lintels. One cannot help but wonder how the monoliths got to this site, how they were propped up, and why. How many people did it take to hoist those lintels?? What exactly was the purpose of this place? 

Notice how you don't see many tourists in the photos? It wasn’t difficult to filter out the masses once we were on the path. The bottleneck at the entrance, however, was so bad we almost left. I’m glad we didn’t. Twenty years ago, I never paid admission or crossed the road to get as close as possible to the monument, and I’ve regretted it since. 

John and I must have taken a photo every inch we advanced in our circumnavigation, trying to capture Stonehenge from every angle. And, yes, that Spinal Tap song played on an internal loop for days after.

white horses

On our first full day in England, we ate a Hot Breakfast and hit the road for Avebury. But first, at the recommendation of the innkeeper, we followed the brown attraction signs to Uffington in order to see a white horse. The Uffington white horse was the first of its kind—a large horse carved into a hill and filled with chalk so it could be seen from a distance. 

The carving dates to the Bronze Age. The horse’s purpose is still debated, though it is thought to have belonged to the Uffington Castle, a village with a fortress and earthen moat (pictured above) that ring the hilltop. Until the nineteenth-century, the horse was cleaned annually in a ritual called the Scouring, where the villagers would pull the weeds and grass from the horse and refresh the chalk.

The National Trust maintains this site so we were able to drive to the top of the hill, park the car, and take an effortless hike through a sheep meadow to get to the horse. We spent a lot of time here, primarily because the views were so stunning. 

On a clear day, we could see forever. The boys took full advantage of strong winds and flew a kite on Dragon Hill, situated just below the white horse. An impression of this place will stay with me for a very long time.

The Uffington white horse is one of eight that remain (at one time there were 13). Another white horse is just outside of Calne, where we would be staying for the next two nights. Among all the things to do in the area—Bath and various other sites were nearby—climbing another hill to see a hill carving was not high on my list. But the following day, still fighting jet lag and exhausted after a wonderful morning in Bath, we took naps then had a pre-dinner hike up Cherhill.

The Cherhill white horse is the third oldest, but its origins are sketchy. This is county Wiltshire’s official story (courtesy of wikipedia): 

The figure at Cherhill was first cut in 1780 by a Dr Christopher Alsop, of Calne, and was created by stripping away the turf to expose the chalk hillside beneath. Its original size was 165 feet (50 m) by 220 feet (67 m). Dr Alsop, who was Guild Steward of the Borough of Calne, has been called "the mad doctor", and is reported to have directed the making of the horse from a distance, shouting through a megaphone from below Labour-in-Vain Hill. His design may have been influenced by the work of his friend George Stubbs, notable for his paintings of horses.

Dr. Alsop buried glass bottles in the ground to form the horse’s eye. For years the bottles were replace when they disappeared, but at some point, people stopped that tradition. Our hike was fantastic. We followed the footpath up the steep hill to a monument. The clever turnstile we climbed is pictured above. The boys ran the whole way. Some kind hikers told us the boys had been spotted near the castle. As at Uffington, there is no actual castle. No ruins. Just a moat that surrounded the village. The castle was vast; I said a silent prayer that the boys weren’t taking a lap. But then we saw them near the white horse. 

On our way down, we walked through the middle of a cattle herd, which was frightening. John had a stare down with a cow that thought s/he’d follow us. He raised his hand, and the cow backed off. Simon took this picture; it's more ground than cattle but you get a sense of what we were up against.
These hikes would form the basis for our trips theme: climb to the top of big hills.

happy campers

The boys are at sleepaway camp this week. The house is very quiet. John and I have bogarted the dinner menu and the TV. The cats are relaxed and haven't once gone into hiding.

That said, I miss them so much. It would be nice if I could call them each night, before they go to bed, so I could hear about all the exciting things they did that day.