Off to Kent

I'm off to Kent today, joining Dave at the music camp where he's conducting. I don't think I'll be blogging, so expect me to be absent for a few days. Dave informs me that the Internet connection there is "wonky."

I will bring my camera, though, and I'm hoping to do some exploring in the woods and towns in the area. Report to follow!

I went to see "Magic Mike," that Steven Soderbergh movie about male strippers, the other day. I wanted to see it because it was filmed in Tampa, my hometown. (I realize that's a little like buying Playgirl for the articles, but I don't find the guys in "Magic Mike" all that attractive -- too much skank factor, you know?) I expected a mediocre flick, but it was surprisingly good. Matthew McConaughey is excellent as the oily proprietor of the strip club. As for the scenery, it was mostly generic Florida -- I recognized only Ybor City, downtown Tampa's entertainment district, and the distant Sunshine Skyway bridge in a few waterfront shots.

I've had more success placing some of my photos on local London blogs. Londonist used two of my pictures from World Pride, and Little London Observationist used several of my storefronts. Exciting!

(Photo: From my last visit to Kent, the garden at Leeds Castle.)

Downriver

Slick oil, diamond white sun
Glints in a halo
Encircling the warm domes of your knees,
Your shoulders,
The black skullcap of your hair;
We ride invisible currents
And doldrums, high above
The continents of the riverbed.
You haunt me, on my right hand,
Warm and smooth as sleep,
Coasting on a silver river, an aching dream,
As the trees stretch
And pass overhead
And the grass on the banks
Rustles, brushed by our feet.

(July 1989)

(Photo: A Florida dragonfly, to accompany a poem written while I lived in Florida, retrieved Wednesday from my file box.)

The File Box

This is our plumbago plant, living happily in a corner of our balcony. Earlier this spring it was struggling -- the sun-baked leaves turned red, the blossoms vanished. Now, with the recent cool temperatures and rain, it's blooming again.

Kellee caught her flight back to the states yesterday. We took her up to Paddington Station for the express train to Heathrow, and in the few minutes it took Dave and I to get from Paddington back to Notting Hill on the tube, the weather went from sunny and mild to windy and raining. Then it went back to sunny and mild, and an hour later, back to rainy again. I'm getting whiplash! This is a very peculiar summer.

The recent persistent rain led to the cancellation of yesterday's outdoor concert in Hyde Park featuring '80s hit-makers like Bananarama, Rick Astley and Kylie Minogue. Apparently the grassy turf at the concert grounds softened and became a quagmire beneath the feet of fans at two earlier concerts -- and indeed, when Kellee and I looked inside the fence during our park walk on Sunday, I was shocked by all the mud. It looked like Woodstock!

Yesterday I cleaned out our file box -- which contains all our insurance information and medical stuff and that sort of thing, organized in a way that probably makes sense only to me -- and I found a couple of interesting folders. One, labeled "Misc Writing," contains yellowed compositions, reports and stories from my high school and college years. Another, called "Old School Stuff," has more of the same. A third, "Poems to 1992," contains my really, really horrible college poetry.

It's time to do some purging. Why am I saving compositions on subjects that I doubt I chose, like a three-page analysis of the character of Hamlet's mother? What about my brief tirade on the politics fueling Ethiopia's famine? Or my final paper for Expository Writing, on the negative effects of television on children's growth and development? (Professor Whose-Name-I-Can't-Remember: "Pretty much a collection of unsupported assertions. Not your best effort.")

On the other hand, some of these papers are keepers. I remember my study of character development in E.M. Forster's "A Passage to India" because I loved the book -- in fact, I still own the paperback, marked with margin notes and yellow streaks from a highlighter pen.

And the poems! The collegiate angst, the emotional turmoil, the purposeless drama! Some are worth keeping, a few maybe even worth sharing. The rest must go immediately to the shredder. (Well, not immediately -- first I need to buy a shredder.)

Even though I retrieved my Stonehenge report from one of these folders last August, I'd forgotten that I had most of this stuff filed away. My plan is to condense those three folders down to one. I need more space in that file box.

The Eye at Night

Kellee wanted to see the city at night -- and what better vantage point than the London Eye?

We zipped down to South Bank on Monday night to board the Eye at 9:30 p.m., the last possible time before it closes. Even then, it wasn't quite dark. These summer days are so incredibly long. Apparently during the Olympics the Eye's hours will be extended until midnight, so true nighttime rides will be possible.

That's St. Paul's Cathedral above, with the white dome, and the National Theater colorfully lit in the foreground.

And here's the obligatory shot of Parliament. I never tire of this view.

Neither does Dave. (He later complained that his pictures were blurry, but I guess the iPhone only has so much low-light capability.)

By the time we got off the Eye, the sky was much darker.

We walked back to the tube over the bridge to Embankment, with this as our view. Not too shabby!

Kellee returns to the states today. Dave leaves tomorrow for a music workshop in Kent. I'll probably travel down to join him this weekend. And then his parents arrive next week for a 10-day stay.

No rest for the weary!

Street Art in Shoreditch

As promised, here's a selection of the street art I found in Shoreditch on Thursday. First, a beautiful cat stencil by C215.

These aliens were watching over a guy munching on an apple. (They remind me of the Argos aliens.)

I'm not sure who's responsible for this guy, apparently caught in the middle of brain surgery.

The portrait of the woman seems to be signed "Irony." The "Y U No" guy and "Puking Rainbows" have been around for a few months -- you may remember them from a past post.

Pen1 did a beautiful full-length stencil of Jodie Foster as Iris in "Taxi Driver." Most of the piece has since been scrawled over and tagged, but her face remains pristine.

Roses sprouting from the pavement!

I always get a kick out of the tiny scribbles people leave on walls. What possessed someone to draw this chair, no more than an inch high?

And finally, a single, lonely sperm -- but, as Dave pointed out, all it takes is one!

Diana's Birthday

Kellee and I took a long walk through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens yesterday afternoon. As we passed Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana lived before her death, I saw notes and flowers adorning the gate. "What could those be for?" I thought.

Turns out, July 1 would have been Diana's 51st birthday.

This is the same gate where bouquets were famously piled high after Diana's death almost 15 (!) years ago. Some of the cards made reference to her tragic end. "Happy birthday -- I miss you a lot," one person wrote.

But others were written, a bit strangely, as if she hadn't died at all. "Many happy returns and best wishes," said another person. "Have a lovely day!" wrote a third.

Maybe they meant to show that Diana is alive in our minds and memories, even if not physically.

I liked Diana OK, but I never worshipped at her altar like some people. The day she died, I was at a journalism convention in Chicago, where as you could imagine, heads were spinning at the news. I raced off with another guy to get fresh editions of the Sun-Times from the newspaper's loading dock, which was near our hotel. Ultimately many people left the convention early to get back to their jobs and their own Diana coverage.

It staggers the imagination to think she'd be 51 now!

World Pride of the LGBT Variety

Yesterday was World Pride Day in London -- a bit later than all the gay pride festivities in the states, but certainly no less festive. There was a parade, although apparently it was truncated by funding problems, and a subsequent street party in and around Trafalgar Square and Old Compton Street, the Soho neighborhood traditionally at the center of London's gay scene.

I just can't get enough photos of drag queens -- especially when they really glam out like these two beautiful ladies.

Dave and Kellee decided -- for some reason I can't fathom -- that they'd rather see the Tower of London than go to World Pride, so I went on my own. As it turned out, I got there a few hours late and missed the parade itself. I mostly just roamed around taking photos, which I've assembled into a Flickr set here. (Be warned: mild nudity!)

I think this guy borrowed his outfit from the Notting Hill Carnival. Which is not to say it isn't fabulous.

Not everyone was decked out in sequins. These older women took the conservative route -- but they were sitting out on Old Compton Street, enjoying the wild sights like everyone else.

And not everyone was partying. Some people were there with a serious message, reminding us that elsewhere in the world, deviating from the dominant social or political identity can result in persecution and death.

I saw representatives of many countries, including Suriname, Nigeria and Cyprus, in addition to the Iranians above. I'm sure there were many, many more I didn't happen to see.

These two dancers were gyrating in the window of a store, selling something. (I have no idea what.) Needless to say, they were attracting a lot of attention...

...and no shortage of people wanted to pose with them!

I always have fun at gay pride events, even though I only stay a few hours and never do all the dances and after-parties and all that. Even when I was young, I wasn't much of a partier. All the dressing up and craziness bears very little relationship to my day-to-day life as a gay man -- but it reminds us of the difficulties we face around the world, and gives us visibility and a sense of community. I must say, it was heartening to see Trafalgar Square filled with thousands of us!