england ebb and flow

i spent these past few days down in england again, this time eastside, in the society of my esteemed friend nick rubin. we first toured the city of lincoln, where nick had been attending a conference on radio studies and of which i had never heard. it was surprisingly charming and at times very beautiful, especially throughout its ancient cathedral quarter and in its seriously quaint cafes and tearooms. i hope to bum a few pictures off of nick soon to show you a few enchanted scenes. but speaking of, we next headed to london for a night, and had booked some beds in a hostel in piccadilly, right in the middle of the lights and the rabble and the heels and miniskirts and ritzy upmarket and sketchy nightowls. i always find london's overwhelming unknowability and complexity to be mostly exciting and inviting, and this time i surrendered myself to these stimuli without even trying to process them. by happenstance we were staying right across from the main camp-out location for those anticipating the release of the final harry potter book, the waterstone's at piccadilly, and stumbled upon a huge buzz and long queue walking home - it was just after midnight, and there were cheers and hoots galore. check it out:
it was certainly weird to be surrounded by a mass of fanatics without being at all personally interested - as a bird's eye view on cultural phenomenon.
thereafter i ended my long love affair with the uk rail system. i have been the only apologist for it of my friends for some time now, and perhaps it is only that i am attached to trains in general as a mode of travel, cocooning passengers through landscapes with (ideally) a kind of lulling peace. BUT the rupture, indeed: i discovered on the morning of my departure that i had lost my train ticket home, which was my acting bookmark in my now also lost book, and the train company refused to reprint me a ticket, despite my evidence and reference of booking handy. so i am 97 pounds in the red now and fretting quite sorely. luckily it'll be my last interaction with them this time around.
back in edinburgh, i sense a slow upwelling of the festival buzz. last week i got to see belleville rendes-vous (listen a little ) on the big screen as part of special animation film programming, and today i'm going to on the waterfront as part of a month of marlon brando. i'll prefer to let this current move me for now!