95 Streets!

Yesterday was a super-productive day of shooting -- 95 streets over 3 postcodes for Bleeding London! This is the second-to-last weekend I'll be able to shoot before the March deadline, so I wanted to get out and really hoof it. I started near Golders Green, finished up that postcode, and made my way to Colindale and worked on that one.

I pretty much walked from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., stopping long enough in late morning to eat a chocolate croissant on a bench in the Brent Cross tube station. The station was very quiet, it being the weekend, and it was actually kind of peaceful, sitting there and watching a handful of people wander in and out.

I walked through iffy-looking council estates, past fields of daffodils, over creeks and over superhighways. I saw stately swans, kids playing on scooters, blooming camellias and deteriorating stuffed animals hanging on a fence. I had a great time.

All my photos aren't up on the Bleeding London web gallery yet -- I've been stymied by a technical issue -- but they'll be there before too long. I took a few shots just for myself, like this super-colorful grocery store in Golders Green.

I know you're all sick to death of hearing about this project, and I apologize for regaling you with it yet again. (Imagine how Dave must feel!) But when it eats up my entire day I just don't have anything else to tell you, except that we had our friend Lisa over for dinner last night. Dave made steaks and I made a round of killer martinis!

Special Guest Photographer

For the first time in ages, I don't have any photos to blog. Well, I could always dig something out of the archives, but nothing comes to mind and I haven't had a chance to take anything at all this week. (I'm going to remedy that today with a long photowalk.)

So, in lieu of more photos from me, we have a Special Guest Photographer -- Google Street View!

Every once in a while, browsing Street View, I'll stumble across a scene and think, "Hey, that's a great picture!" The best example so far may be the photo at the top, from London. Between the man instructing his dog to pee, the clamped car and the graffiti assuring us all that "It's OK!" it's a heck of a scene.

I love the everyday life on the streets -- the kids waving at the camera, like these boys in London...

...or the pets wandering around, like this cat in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Google blurs the faces of the people it photographs, as well as many of the street signs and license plates. I think it's crazy, but it appeases privacy advocates.)

Isn't it cool that we can virtually explore Tel Aviv? Or Yekaterinburg, Russia, or Sao Paulo, Brazil? It's amazing.

I spend a lot of time on Street View. Sometimes I'm reading a news story about a particular place and I want to see what it looks like, or sometimes I get curious about places I've lived or visited and want to see what they look like now.

The scenes can be quite beautiful, like these palm shadows near Venice, Florida. I guess it's the whole million-monkeys-typing thing. You take enough pictures, you're bound to get a few good ones -- even if you're a mechanized camera on the top of a moving car.

How about these dramatic skies in New Iberia, La.?

Or these amazing bougainvillea in Miami?

My Google Street View captures, however, are nothing compared to those gathered by artist Jon Rafman. Take a look!

Being Cultured

Dave and I went to this concert last night, a London Symphony Orchestra event ostensibly celebrating conductor Michael Tilson Thomas's 70th birthday. Dave wanted to hear the Shostakovich, and I am always happy to hear Gershwin -- such a uniquely American sound, and the perfect bridge between the classical and pop worlds. Also, I'd never been to the Barbican Centre to hear music, so that made things extra-interesting.

Two other music teachers from school came along, and a couple of senior students joined us there. We saw a couple of other teachers and students at the event itself. Apparently our school helps keep the LSO afloat!

I enjoyed the music, though I must admit that I tend to daydream at concerts. My mind wanders around, thinks about work and Bleeding London and other stuff, and the music becomes something of a backdrop until I get pulled back by changes in tempo or a special solo. I don't really listen with an educated ear. Dave, on the other hand, hears all sorts of things I don't, chord structures and whatnot. He said it was interesting that the Shostakovich ended so slowly -- Tilson Thomas said afterwards in remarks to the audience that he was going for a tragic effect, but Dave was skeptical.

Anyway, that was me, last night, daydreaming away at the Barbican. We all had two pints of ale at dinner, so that probably contributed to my daydreaminess! (I pounded a coffee at intermission.)

(Photo: Another interesting Tudor-style house near Finchley.)

More on the London Riots

I read an interesting article in the Guardian yesterday about the London riots of 2011, those three or four summer nights in August when rampaging mobs smashed windows and set fires in several English cities. The writer of the article purports to have participated in the riots -- though to hear him tell it, he didn't do much more than throw a yogurt -- and he argues that they were an expression of youthful anger about social injustices.

Those riots happened not even a month after Dave and I moved to London. I will never forget watching hoodie-clad youths roaming down Westbourne Grove, right below our flat, leaving broken shop windows and a flaming motorbike in their wake. We found out later they smashed their way into a posh restaurant a few blocks away and robbed diners of their valuables.

Anyway, the disenchfranchised-youth argument is not particularly novel. I get that some people are angry about social inequality. I'm angry about social inequality.

But this column was patently absurd in some of its defenses of the rioters. The writer argued, for example, that he heard youths on the street express anger over issues like the phone-hacking scandal and MPs submitting bogus expenses, both items in the news at the time. Frankly, that's baloney. No one was rioting over journalists hacking into celebrities' phones.

The readers' comments were really enlightening (and humorous). Many rejected the column out of hand, calling the rioters violent, opportunist thugs who merely seized upon a moment of police weakness to get themselves a new TV and new sneakers. As one said, "They just wanted to do it because it was fun, and grab some free shit in the process." Several -- presumably from elsewhere in the UK -- pointed out that the riots happened only in urban England, and that there was no unrest in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland (for a change).

While there are certainly people in our society who are routinely wronged -- whether they're harassed by police or unable to get a job or suffer repeated humiliation at the hands of the bureaucracy of the welfare state -- I also tend more toward the belief that most of the London rioting was simple opportunistic crime. I'm glad this particular writer found a positive way to channel his social frustration, but making excuses for the violence does justice a disservice.

(Photo: Unrelated to rioting, a boy outside a block of flats near Temple Fortune, last weekend.)

The Exotic Land of Catarrh

My cold is getting better. I still have a bit of congestion, or "catarrh" as the British say, but I think I'm on the mend. "Catarrh" is a fabulous word, isn't it? It sounds like an ornate type of Persian carpet or maybe a distant travel destination. Too bad it just means a snotty nose. I've never heard anyone use it out loud but it does turn up on medicine boxes.

The British have a lot of speech patterns that are just different from American ones. The other day a woman was photocopying a knitting book in the library, and wondering whether it was a British or American publication. The top of one page was titled, "Putting Mistakes Right." I said, "It's definitely British. Americans would never say that. We'd say, 'Fixing Mistakes,' or 'Correcting Mistakes.'"

Being British, she was amused by this small subtlety.

Anyway, aside from my slowly departing cold, not much is going on at the moment. Dave, his coworker Gordon and I went to the pub last night for an after-work drink with his friends, who leave town tomorrow. And I successfully shook down a student to pay for her long-lost computer charger, which is a minor triumph in my world.

More and more daffodils are appearing in the garden!

(Photo: Hoop Lane Cemetery in Golders Green, last weekend.)

Guidance or Censorship?

We had an interesting situation arise yesterday in the library. The newest issue of this magazine arrived, announcing itself as the "Queer Issue." The Q-word was printed front and center on the cover, over a photo of a curved torso, and inside were lots of artistic photos, many of them nude. Males, females, undergarments, complete lack of garments -- you name it.

There's always a bit of tension in a school library between free expression of ideas and suitability. We have to think about age-appropriate content -- particularly for our youngest readers, in fifth and sixth grade. When this magazine crossed my desk, I thought, "Is this really appropriate for the school library?"

I've already mentioned our red-dot system, which marks books that are appropriate for younger readers.  Personally, I hate that system, because it's not comprehensive (many, many books that would be fine for younger readers do not have a red dot) but the theory is that we need something to guide us and discourage kids from checking out books containing overt sexuality and mature themes.

At the same time, I hate discouraging kids from reading anything, and the civil libertarian in me wonders if it's so bad to have them check out a book containing sex. Isn't this queasiness merely a remnant of my puritanical American mindset? Why do we let kids check out many books containing violence (as surely those sword-wielding fantasy novels must) but balk at sex and relationships? Is it so terrible for fifth- or sixth-graders to see artistic nudity?

I admit that sometimes I am flexible about the red dots. I might not let a fifth-grader have "Lolita" -- not that they'd understand it anyway -- but if they give me a verbal assurance that their parents won't mind I'm pretty likely to give them what they want.

In the case of the magazine, though, I didn't put it on the rack. (We don't put out the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, either.) I kept it and circulated it among the teachers, and afterwards it will go to the high school art department with the rest of the back issues. There, at least, it's likely to encounter only readers of an appropriate age.

(Photo: A girl on a scooter in Golders Green, last weekend.)

Purple Things, or Eight Hours Later

We have tiny little violets blooming in a corner of our garden, which is a nice surprise. I'd seen plants with leaves that looked like they might be violets, but I wasn't really sure until the flowers showed up.

And here's one of our purple crocuses. We have three so far, including one that appeared in the middle of the lawn. I'm always afraid I'm going to step on it.

I did decide to make myself scarce for lunch with Dave's friends yesterday. My cold has persisted and I didn't want them to sit there and worry about whether they would catch it while I sneezed dramatically all over the food. So I took Olga for a long walk through the West Heath, Sandy Heath and Hampstead Heath Extension.

She found lots to keep her busy, including plenty of squirrels to chase. When she got overheated from all the running, she'd collapse into the mud to cool off. Needless to say, she required a bath when we got home.

Dave's friends arrived at noon, so I left at 11:30 a.m., planning to return at 2 p.m. and meet them briefly before they departed. We figured they'd be here two or three hours. But as it turns out, my efforts to keep my cold from them were completely unnecessary because they stayed for eight hours.

I repeat: EIGHT HOURS.

Apparently they weren't at all concerned about catching my cold.

I had hoped to have the afternoon free to lie in bed and read, but alas, I was entertaining. This was after cleaning the house all morning and the aforementioned two-and-a-half-hour dog walk. Do I sound aggrieved? I guess I am, a little bit.

On the plus side, his friends were nice enough and Dave's vegan butternut squash curry turned out well. He decided to skip the falafel, but we have about eight cans of garbanzo beans stacked up on the counter so I'm guessing it will be on the menu sometime this week!