Before I proceed chronologically through the ten days since the Superbowl, though, I would like to address three points of business. First, in my previous post, I neglected to give credit to Cat Samson, who made a comment that I turned into the title of that post. Second, I would like to apologize for the poor writing quality of the preceding post. Upon rereading the post, I discovered a particularly high number of egregious errors, so I will be sure to put more thought and consideration into this post in light of that rushed, poorly written one.
Finally, I would like to describe an additional adventure that I should have included in the preceding post, my trip to St. Paul’s Cathedral for Evensong on the Friday before the Superbowl. Evensong is a part of the daily cycle of prayers in the Anglican Church and celebrates the incarnation of Christ with, not surprisingly, a heavy emphasis on the use of song. The service included scriptural readings but did not incorporate any type of Eucharist/communion service, as, I gather, is common for prayer service in the Anglican Church.
Late on Friday afternoon, after spending the first part of the day continuing my research at the British Library, I joined Hal, David, Cat, Kyla, Lauren, and Nick for the service, as they had made plans to go because of David’s visit. St. Paul’s Cathedral sits upon the highest point in the City of London and is only about a mile south of the flats, so I had already grown accustomed to seeing its dirty, faded blue dome and its two prominent western bell towers rising above the rest of the city’s skyline since, by law, surrounding buildings must be short enough that the cathedral remains visible throughout much of London. Up close, the enormous white marble and blue roof cuts an imposing figure, rising to 365 feet at the top of the dome, 60 feet above the 305 feet of the dome of the similarly prominent Cathedral of Saint Paul in Minnesota and nearly twice the 187 feet of the Golden Dome (including Mary) on Notre Dame’s campus.
The splendor of the interior lives up to the prominence of the exterior, with massive columns running along the sides of the main length of the cathedral up to the dome, where the wings branch out to the left and right before continuing on to the altar and choir area. After the first altar, an ornately carved wooden structure provides seats for the choir, matching the intricate woodcarving boarder inset in the stone around the altar area. Marble Corinthian columns align on either side of the altar leading from the dome to the back of the altar. Decorative gold appears throughout the building.
We arrived early for the service and took our seats near the front, underneath the dome. However, just after we sat down, the cathedral staff invited all of the early attendees to sit in the extra spaces in the choir seating – which consisted of two sets of four rows of benches facing each other in a style similar to the seating in the houses of Parliament – behind the altar.
The service began with a procession, the choir entering simultaneously with the robed religious personal. Unfamiliar with the garments of the Anglican Church, I could not distinguish between priests, committed religious, and lay participants. Like the choir at Westminster Cathedral, the choir included only males, with boys singing the soprano and alto parts. Although unusual, the boys are certainly well trained and excellent singers; I do not recall noticing a shrill note. As I mentioned above, the majority of the service, beyond the scripture readings, consisted of sung prayers celebrating the Incarnation of Christ.
Overall, though not something that I would attend regularly, I enjoyed the service and the approach of prayer through beautiful music. This visit also served as my first experience with an Anglican church. Many of the prayers felt like cousins to prayers that I am familiar with, but in an older English and, at times, with references to the queen.
Thank you for allowing me that long, but, in my opinion, important, digression. I will now return to chronologically discussing events that have occurred since I wrote my last post.
Immediately after I posted my last entry, I went out to watch the Superbowl. Initially, I planned to go down to a pub at the intersection of Fleet Street and Farringdon Road called The Albion, but, when I learned that they were charging a five pound cover for the night, I decided against it. Instead, I went up to the Exmouth Arms – an intimate pub just up the street from the flats in Exmouth Market – when one of my flat-mates called to tell me that they were not charging a cover. When I arrived, I found only my flat-mate, four other Notre Dame students, the proprietor, and two other customers. Apparently, the proprietor had expected far more students to come for the game than ultimately arrived. Making matters more awkward, the four other guys all left before the end of the first quarter. Although I enjoyed the conversation with one of the local customers, my flat-mate and I left during the second quarter to avoid keeping the disappointed proprietor open unnecessarily late.
Not surprisingly, television coverage of the game in Britain does not compare to the hype surrounding coverage of the game in the United States. Although the BBC showed the game and the halftime show, instead of showing the commercials that are half the fun of watching the game live, they showed a sports correspondent speaking with the former American football players that they hired for the evening to explain the game to a market the does not understand it. There were so few commercials that I certainly got the impression that advertisers recognized that nobody was really watching the game, anyways.
As I often do, I slept in on Monday. In the afternoon, I met my Economics class outside of the Bank Underground Station for our class trip to the Bank of England Museum across the street. Not surprisingly, the majority of the displays in the museum consisted of historical artifacts, including objects from the bank’s early days and preserved bank notes dating to the bank’s first use of paper currency. The most exciting display in the museum, though, consisted of a gold bar chained to an open case, allowing visitors to touch and lift the very dense and, consequently, heavy bar. Our visit concluded with a short lecture from a member of the museum staff regarding the history and functions of the bank. After finishing at the bank, I stopped at a pub with a couple of friends who had not yet stopped at a pub after class. I finally tried London Pride, a darker red ale, and enjoyed it, finding it bitter, but not overly heavy.
Tuesday night brought yet another visit to a theater performance, this time at the National Theatre to see Frankenstein. Although I will describe it in more detail when I discuss my tour of the building, the National Theatre building includes three theaters – an amphitheater, a proscenium arch, and a black box – and, on the outside, looks like an enormous Frank Lloyd Wright house constructed entirely out of concrete. Frankenstein is currently one of the most anticipated plays in London. Directed by Danny Boyle, director of Slumdog Millionaire, the play provides a theatrical version of Mary Shelley’s novel rather than a theatrical version of the cliché Frankenstein of film. Already sold out through its entire run, the show is still in its preview stage, and we saw approximately the fourth of fifth public performance.
Unique to this production is a daily change in casting; the actors portraying Victor Frankenstein and the Creature play each role on alternate days. As a result, the play relies heavily upon these two actors, ultimately reaching a point where the other characters seem underdeveloped in comparison. In particular, the show focuses on the Creature, introducing his character to open the play and seemingly encouraging sympathy towards him for much of the show.
Unfortunately, beyond the excellent performance of the creature and the very good performance of Frankenstein, a variety of issues hobbled the production. The focus on the Creature at the beginning of the show led to rushed expositions surrounding the other main characters, including Frankenstein, later in the plot than usual. Also, although the production included spectacular sets, the extravagance of some of them seemed to distract from the story, an issue that may stem from Danny Boyle’s experience as a film, rather than theater, director. Overall, the production seemed to fall short of its high potential for excellence in a number of categories.
My remaining weeknights were relatively quiet and, for the most part, consisted of evenings spent working on Philosophy of Law Paper. However, I did venture out on Wednesday evening to go to a popular nearby pub called The Dovetail. The Dovetail’s appeal lies in variety, as it imports a wide selection of Belgian Beers. While many of my friends tried their strawberry beer, I went with one of their wheat beers. It had some type of strange seasoning – I think that the menu may have said coriander? – that gave an usual taste to the light wheat flavor. If I can remember its name when I go there in the future, I do not think that I will order it again.
I have written enough papers late at night that I can tell that I have reached the point where the quality of my writings decreases with each passing minute, so I will have to finish this post at a later date, perhaps on Wednesday afternoon between class and seeing the London Philharmonic perform (students tickets were only four pounds!).
Until then,
Joel
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