the merry band of american visitors should be arriving tomorrow! they haven't been in contact with me about when or where, however, so i'm feeling a tad anxious about whether they will actually materialize. but, assuming it all goes off, it will be great fun and never fully digestible in the best of ways.
meanwhile, i have officially booked my plans for my wee trip around england in two weeks - a happy trot to london and to oxford, and now possibly to durham with julia for a night on the end. i'm really looking forward to it; it has been quite awhile since i have seen new places and explored the dynamics of these isles i am calling my home; not to mention some really fun people with whom i will be joining forces in these places. life is good when classes end, it seems. (i haven't forgotten them already, though, trust you me)
i have had a busy week (shocking), but even if common it is certainly noteworthy in its particular substance. tuesday night i had a horrible night at work, one of the busiest ever and just so happens on an evening when i was the onlyone running the restaurant, but i was finally out of there and over to andrew's birthday party around 11:30pm. this took place in a neighborhood called bruntsfield that is on the opposite side of the university from my abode, where the majority of the student-occupied flats are located. the area is full of its own shops and restaurants, and all are tiny and entrepreneurial and cute; i hope i can spend more time over there- it's like a whole other undiscovered little city within the greater limits. one of my favorite things about edinburgh is its self-presentation as knowable, surmountable, homey, but its truth of unending intricacy. there is always more to be explored, and so my endearment is constantly fed. the party was held at my friend ewan's flat (he is the president of the isc) and it is an amazing spot - seems like a tiny space that opens up in vastness once entered - ewan's room has two couches in it, for example; it is more of this edinburgh mysteriousness. it was lovely to meet some of andrew's friends and was a cozy place for me to unwind and remember how to be sometimes charming.
wednesday was a day of work and rest (i am human, after all), but because of my attendance to the second production of faust became a very strange day in tone, characterized, to be frank, by a weird sexuality. goethe's unstageable play was adapted by a professor/playwright named john clifford, who recently became a transexual after undergoing the painful loss of his wife to brain cancer. he very much capitalized on his sentiments about the fluid nature of gender and sexuality in his adaptation of goethe's work, basically to the point of reinterpretation and rewriting. instead of ending in faust's salvation (despite having sold his soul to the devil) due to the overwhelming power of god's love and forgiveness, faust is saved because he and all of the other characters come to terms with the female within all of us and to the love of the essential, primordial mother-god. i wish i could articulate how vociferous and even heavy-handed this final note was in the production, and how taken aback i was by it. call me a purist, but i sort of felt that it was irresponsible of the producers/playwright to advertise the play as goethe's faust if in fact it is donning entirely new, modern themes, themes quite personal to the adapting professor at that. and he stuck to goethe so much in all other respects; i don't know, for some reason it threw me for a loop. there was something unexpectedly histrionic about this project of adapting and performing this classical piece of literature.
sometimes i even surprise myself with my snobbery.
of course, the play was still very well done, and theatre, as we constantly discuss in my tragedy and modernity class, is very much supposed to provoke, to disturb, to move, to linger, so it was a successful piece of drama to say the least. i'm glad to have seen it, in all of its ambition and singular attitude and self-consideration. it was funny, though, because after the play i went to a cafe for a coffee and some reading and i am pretty sure that the female barista was flirting with me. and my reading was freud's theory of how all religious beliefs stem from the oedipus complex! sheesh, this day was too much for me.
yesterday was my usual round of class - my professors have been saying such funny little british jokes in their lectures lately, and i laugh heartily because proper wit these days seems precious- followed by a long and eventful evening around the city with andrew. we first dined in the dome, which is a famous restaurant in edinburgh, especially architecturally; it was originally a building for the royal surgeon's college, then part of the national bank, and now a lovely and fancy bar and grill room. many buildings in edinburgh are this way, especially churches that have been converted into other spaces. speaking of, we next headed to a jazz venue
called 'the lot' (that is a converted church) for some old-fashioned jazz by a trumpeter and his orchestra. bent perrson (great name, eh) is one of the most renowned louis armstrong interpreters and duke ellington enthusiasts, apparently, so i pretty much melted into a puddle on the floor. the men were very white, very nerdy, but totally had their groove and had great fun, it was clear. oddly one saxophonist actually looked just like my uncle keith, who coincidentally also plays saxophone in a jazz band. anyway, i've posted pictures of all of this one my companion website, so please look along.because the jazz got my itch going, after this we wanted to find somewhere to dance. we ended up at a place called the bongo club, which was having an event hosted by the beltane fire society. every spring a massive bonfire & festival happens on calton hill (one of the city's seven hills) to celebrate the gaelic holiday beltane, which marks the transition between the vernal equinox and summer solstice. it'll happen here on april 30th and sounds like a crazy time and a signature event, so i hope i can make it out. however, the society's evening was called 'spring equinox,' and was something like a real-life dramatization of the famous painting 'garden of earthly delights.' people were fairies, elves, drunk, close to naked, dancing, beating on african drums, eating chocolate; it was wild and sometimes hilarious as i ran into several classmates of mine engaging in these hedonistic, hippieish antics. the secret lives we scholars lead, apparently! it was also amusing because andrew and i were just about the most wholesome people, in dress appropriate to an evening of fine dining and jazz. but it was totally unexpected and fun and overwhelming in its visual stimuli - i apologize for not having any pictures to show for it.
today before my dinner shift i must read and write emails - my eternal projects. forgive the length of my entry, but i have been absent for many days in substance and will continue to be, i expect. wish me luck in my juggling act; through it always i am bouncy and alert, as one should be at my age. so! onward.
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