So apparently you're not supposed to order pancakes outside the United States, and nobody told me. The ones I got were certainly edible, fresh and fluffy and covered in blueberries, so I don't know what the fuss is about, but I still feel obligated to pass on that bit of advice. It seems when we go to war with a country we do introduce them to McDonald's, but thus far we have not passed on the elusive secret of making pancakes that don't suck (throw the first one away).
In other areas of human culture, this England place seems alright. My first day I spent dealing with jet lag, severe compression issues from fitting into an airline seat and riling up the seemingly demonically possessed nerves in my back and legs, and just really getting to know the newest member of my extended family, who unfortunately still regards me like he's thinking, "Mommy, why is the guy from The Hangover in our house?" So today I got to spend some quality time wandering about and just getting the feel of the place, before catching a bit of culture in the National Gallery (apparently Titian has started painting again or something) and the surprisingly interesting National Portrait Gallery. It seems obvious in retrospect, but it honestly never occurred to me how much I would love such a place, despite my constant visual fascination with random people, like the guy in my sister's favorite breakfast nook who looked just like Stephen Yoakam (the actor, not the country singer). And no, it wasn't actually Stephen Yoakam unless he suddenly became an English builder and started wearing dusty jumpsuits, and... well, you know when certain British men look really sophisticated and statesmanlike but then they start talking in this high, squeaky cartoon character voice with no consonants besides F's and Y's? Yeah, it wasn't Stephen Yoakam. But the portrait gallery was really interesting, from beknighted actors (Dame Judi and Sir Ian) to fiancees who agreed to come over and pose naked to aged aunts... who also agreed to come over and pose naked... interesting stuff.
But the best thing today was getting to see The Globe, which I will profess is a special place, even though I certainly had my doubts. I'm not big on nostalgia and the weight of the past, and I rarely let it all in about "hallowed ground" preferring to let things be built in the moment, but this one really did get to me, partly because it isn't what it claims to be. It's not the theater of Shakespeare, where the Bard himself once trod the boards, and it could so easily be a kitschy museum piece turned into a theme park for tourists, some deadly throwback straight out of Vegas or Epcot, but it's not. Recreating the old wooden theater with uncomfortable benches, interrupted by rain and pigeons and the roar of jet engines as life goes on in the city brought forward the spirit of the theater, not just the bones, the spirit of this place just across the river where stories came to life in dangerous ways and the armies who clashed at Agincourt could come alive and squeeze into this tiny wooden O.
Twenty minutes before showtime I was standing outside looking at the muddy river and downing this fantastically earthy garlic smoked cheeseburger in the fading rain, but then I never had to go back inside. I didn't have to leave my real world, senses and belly all filled, in order to enter theirs. Musicians came out and started playing until they'd fought hard enough for our attention to begin, which seems like the dirty secret of the opening of every Shakespearean play: he knew somebody was going to be talking the first few words, if not more, so nothing was presented to a darkened, hushed audience collected into a single receptive body. The sun was shining, people were making out, a couple wide-eyed nerdy girls had their chins raptly thrust onto the lip of the stage, and we were all together in that space. My boss's boss's (boss's) boss talks about how he won't do Shakespeare in Elizabethan era regalia, tights and wooden sets because it all looks like something pulled out of a museum, and it's dead. Peter Brook talks about the Deadly Theatre as the laborious recreation of an image of something we all agree theater used to be, or is supposed to be, assembled rather than born. This was the opposite: alive and awake to the world, and refusing to play dead. Only this time around instead of boys playing ladies, it seems ladies now play boys.
A final note about English cuisine as I've experienced it so far: there's really a lot of meat going on. Some of that is the insistence by my friends and family that if there's L'Entrecรดte to be had in town, we must go. (I've now gone in three countries on two continents.) And the garlic smoked cheeseburgers at the Globe really are good, maybe not £6 good, but good. But a side of bacon turned to be like, a SIDE of bacon, and I really thought there might be something else in a meat pie, like some vegetables or something. On the other hand, my brother-in-law's pub makes a really nice onion soup... won't find at the Onion Garden (ironically). And who am I kidding, I'm tempted to buy a groundling ticket just to go back and have another garlic-smoked cheeseburger.
Next: How to Celebrate the 4th of July in England Without Anyone Beating the Star Spangled Bejeezus Out of You
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