Holy fuckollini (as my former boss would say) so much shit has happened that every time I open this blog to update it I get overwhelmed with the idea of tediously listing out events one by one. Main thing on my mind is my two job applications (pray for me) and the impending end to my time in Oxford. But first! Images.
I went on a medieval monastic tour of the Christ Church and Worcester Colleges today, and I experienced a strange sort of nostalgia for Oxford. In the sort of way one would feel an unexpected wave of warm feeling towards a dying relative who was never particularly fond of you. It was bright and windy, reminding me that Spring isn't just a distant wish. The image above is a panel of stained glass from the Christ Church Cathedral depicting the death of St. Frideswide (Frithuswith, if you're not Norman and can pronounce all those thorns). If you look close, you can notice a little toilet in the back right corner- a Victorian note in an otherwise medieval scene. According to the professor I was with, it was a symbol of moral and spiritual cleanliness, but I'm not sure I buy that in its entirety. Surely one does not invoke water closet plumbing without a little humour.
I'm writing the rest of this entry on March 17th, by the way. Any good historian (or aspiring rookie) must keep their dates straight. I'm in the basement of a cafe, attempting to write my dreaded (and massive) seminar essay on The Battle of Maldon. I'm wishing, not for the first or last time, that I simply had more hours to write and get my thinking straight. Everything is so rushed, the Reed semester feels like a leisurely stroll in comparison. I daresay I'll never complain about a midterm paper sneaking up on me. I'm listening to the musical Hadestown as I write, and I'm reminded that I should see it on the West End before I leave. I've only 5 weeks left! The term has both flown by and inched on ridiculously slowly. Oxford is a place of paradoxes, as I've discovered. Oop, as I wrote that line, one of the people from my program appeared behind me. Now I'm watching her stuff as she gets coffee. What a weird life I'm living.
New month, new me. I'm typing this while sniffling- the old travel sickness finally got me. I'm mute with a sore throat and my nose is protesting with every inhale. Delightful. In better news, I WENT TO WALES THIS WEEKEND! Hummingbird and I went to the SPECTACULAR Gladstone Library, the ONLY residential library in the UK. The theology room is pictured below:
Okay, those last two entries were a real departure from my normal "look at the cool shit I saw this week" programming. I've been getting a real craving for thinking hard thoughts in the past few weeks, but I don't want my blog to devolve into an ultra-saccharine self-absorbed journal entry repository. So, back to keeping you updated it is. The image above is of the Merton College chapel, a place that quite literally took my breath away. I couldn't stop staring up at the ceiling, and I REALLY need to figure out how old it is. I've looked up a few historical overviews of the place but none that mention the ceiling art specifically.
Whoa, that last entry kind of took on a life of its own. This next one will also be lacking in pictures- a full recap WILL be coming up, but right now I'm feeling pensieve, and there's nothing like the black background of an HTML coding page to get the words flowing. I was thinking today of how "much" I am, of how sometimes I'm delighted by that fact and sometimes I'm afraid people will get sick of me. I don't want to be a bother, but I'm also just bored. I want to talk to people! All the time! But I don't want to trouble myself to make any new acquaintances. As you may have noticed, a lot of my problems have easy solutions that I simply do not want to execute. Right now I'm in the Keble Library basement. I'm listening to the demo of the song "Either/Or" by Ali Dineen:
"You know the way, at dawn and dusk, the sky looks the same... Few stars I see, but I can't tell which it will be..."
I'm trying to write an essay about the nature of fantasy, and I'm feeling stuck because this isn't an analytical paper like my others. I also gave myself a deadline of 5pm so I can go to a cello concert, which is in two hours. Yikes! Is fantasy inherently childish? One question I'm very invested in is what it means for something to be childish. It is my belief that kidlit includes some element of aspects inherent to childhood: why are heroes unexpected and powerful? Because children are entirely conventional and powerLESS. When I was a child I spent countless hours frustrated by how little power I had over my own life. I loved stories of danger and adventure because I, cloaked in the garb of the rogue, or the magician, or the chosen one, was trusted enough to tumble headfirst into things that were frightening and exciting. I had companions that wouldn't move schools or get better, more interesting friends. I could hoard little facts and know if I were ever in a pinch, I could flip through my trusty mental rolodex (I still remember what to do if you have botfly larvae embedded in your skin! Smother them in petroleum jelly, if you're wondering).
But, is that the point? That's my experience, sure, but what is fantasy on a universal scale? Is it Beowulf slaying Grendel? Bilbo making tea? Why do we read fantasy stories to small people with animal-shaped nightlights rather than to packed mead-halls of raucous revellers? Let us tease out some main points:
1. Escapism
2. Excitement
3. Modernity
What I mean by "escapism" should already be apparent. That word, though, implies something urgent and meaningful- what is a world we wish to escape FROM? Why do I look up reverently at the trees swaying in the wind and imagine a shepherd of the forest slowly lumbering along, having forgotten what he was going to say the day before? Why does the sun streaming through the windows remind me of the living room at the end of Bagshot Row? To boil it down to its very self, it is the enrichment of the life we live unwillingly. Yes, I'll not deny that there is pleasure in itself for momentary flight: picking up a book and losing yourself in it for the night until reality and deadlines come knocking. But it is in the moments of awareness of reality where I find fantasy to be a most impactful force. So here's a question: do children read to escape, or do they read to enrich?
C.S. Lewis wrote about excitement in his essay "On Stories" which I shan't quote here because the relevant bits involve way too many repetitions of racial slur. However, to summarize his point, he stipulates that the value of tension and anticipation of a story is only as important as its setting. You must want everything about a world to care about its dangers. Otherwise, an oncoming train in the Wild West would have just about as much excitement as a story about a Honda Civic hitting a poor biker. Now you may be thinking, as I have, that this is a moot point. Who reads things for sheer excitement? Do children really ravenously devour books simply because they want a Marvel movie-like experience? Well, it's entirely possible for some. I haven't encountered such a thing in my life but I won't say it's beyond the realm of plausibility. But again, I invoke agency. An exciting world is one where a reader is permitted to feel threatened by dangers, and is thus granted some semblance of autonomy within the world. I can't gasp at the hobbits being pursued by the Nazgûl if I recognize that I am entirely powerless whether they are caught or not. Give the children swords and steeds, I say!
Ah, the matter of the world we live in. Ursula Le Guin wrote about this in "Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?"
"Now, I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. Like all our evil propensities, the imagination will out. But if it is rejected and despised, it will grow into wild and weedy shapes; it will be deformed. At its best, it will be mere ego-centered daydreaming; at its worst, it will be wishful thinking, which is a very dangerous occupation when it is taken seriously. Where literature is concerned, in the old, truly Puritan days, the only permitted reading was the Bible. Nowadays, with our secular Puritanism, the man who refuses to read novels because it's unmanly to do so, or because they aren't true, will most likely end up watching bloody detective thrillers on the television, or reading hack Westerns or sports stories, or going in for pornography, from Playboy on down. It is his starved imagination, craving nourishment, that forces him to do so. But he can rationalize such entertainment by saying that it is realistic - after all, sex exists, and there are criminals, and there are baseball players, and there used to be cowboys - and also by saying that it is virile, by which he means that it doesn't interest most women.
That all these genres are sterile, hopelessly sterile, is a reassurance to him, rather than a defect. If they were genuinely realistic, which is to say genuinely imagined and imaginative, he would be afraid of them. Fake realism is the escapist literature of our time. And probably the ultimate escapist reading is that masterpiece of total unreality, the daily stock market report."
I think that Le Guin hits on a key point here: that humans are, by nature, imaginative creatures that need proper stimulation to thrive. But again, I return to escapism. We live in a hyper-technological, hyper-stressful world, and oftentimes it's easiest to take leave of our environments through less noble forms of escape. I know I've been victim to many a lost hour on Youtube. But here's the thing. The best escapism, the stuff of dragons, does not simply provide a reprieve from the world we desperately want to ignore for a little while. It enriches us, makes us think. It's magic! And after a while, once you stop giving your time to the television and the phone, you'll probably start to see more of that magic with less and less effort.
Huzzah, my website works on the Bodleian Library Wi-Fi! (The image above is a hallway in Corpus Christi College). I'm currently reading an excerpt from The Battle of Maldon and it got me thinking about heroic culture and modernity, especially in the context of the ending of Le Morte D'Arthur. Oftentimes, people in literature find their values and/or way of life shaken by intruding forces, whether they be vikings or illegitimate incestuous sons. Cultural collisions force us to consider why we think the way we do- why do we surrender to that river, refusing to cross, in respect of it? Why do we find the idea of tearing off a dead man's battle-finery unthinkable? In the modern world, where collisions happen at the speed and frequency of gas molecules, it becomes difficult to identify where you begin and we, end. Of course, preservation of culture has often led to malice- refer to "The United States" in your reference encyclopedias, please. Ideas of cultural purity- nay, even ethnic- quickly fall apart when we consider how long we've been colliding. The Anglo-Saxons, ancestral to the British Isles- oh wait, they're relatively recent Germanic imports. Uh, the Celtic Bretons- well, what do you mean by Celtic? Brittany is surely not "British." The Picts? The Manx? Hell, the Gallo-Romans? Fascinating stuff, and none of it easy. We, humanity, have never been easy. A Sri Lankan garnet in the Sutton Hoo burial could tell you that in fewer words.
So where does that leave us? Does it mean all borders are artificial constructions, made to uphold impermanent ideas of national identity and world power? Well, yes. But I'm under no illusions that we'll be eliminating all borders and getting together for one big international Woodstock anytime soon. I'm telling you that history is always more complicated than what we're told- especially if what you're told is being done in an American school. Speaking of, I got an email the other day about potential ICE presence at my college back home. In it, we were instructed not to engage with ICE agents nor attempt to obstruct their work. This is no doubt a matter of safety: Renée Good and Alex Pretti were murdered in horrifying instants, then baldfacedly lied about by the fascist maniacs some dare to call a government. But I think we're made of stern stuff, my generation. We know it isn't right to sit in our armchairs and wait for the day they decide we're to be the next ones fed to the machine. If you are willing to make a battlefield out of a street corner, you shouldn't be surprised when the calvalry rides out to meet you.
It's easy to write words about this. It's easy to get angry. The hard thing is staying angry, keeping it from crystallizing into useless despair. What we need is people who are angry enough to be kind, then kind enough to do something. ICE is not a local irritation- they are armed, organized, and legally protected (morally, that's another question). Walking up to an ICE agent and hurling a rock at them is a surefire way to get arrested, if not outright killed. So, we have to get organized, too. We have to do it intelligently, knowing that we're being watched, especially online. We have to recognize that ICE agents are not inhuman, but human to a high degree- fallible, manipulated, delusional, which we are all capable of being.
I watched a youtube video essay on the documentary "The Act of Killing" about the perpetrators of the Communist genocide of Indonesia in the 60s. It is a film that I absolutely need to watch in full, but the idea of it was to get inside the psyche of a killer and see both how they were capable of such acts at the time, as well as how the conceptualized their killings decades later. They build elaborate frameworks of fiction around their victims- that they deserved to die. That it was a mercy to kill them. That they weren't really responsible. One thing can psychologically lead to another, and we can all become killers.
That is precisely why I talk about humanity. Where we draw the lines between us and them. That is why I talk about modernity- sometimes, a shorthand for cruelty, one of the oldest languages we all know how to speak. The unforgiving modernity of ripping the shining mail hauberk off a corpse, the old, natural, base impulse to put a child in a cage because he is the enemy. American history is one of cycles when you look at it from far enough away: from my side of the Atlantic, the cycles look as if they are rapidly shortening. So, you cannot look at an ICE agent and see a mask and riot gear with nothing inside. To do so would miss the whole point. You must see yourself, what you are capable of becoming. You must see the colonist burning away the brush to make a field of farmland. You must see the soldier gripping his spear, steeling himself for the onslaught of Danish invaders across the river. You must see the invisible power, the sack of gold driving him onward, whispering in his ear that he is the righteous warrior of HIS land, of HIS people.
I cannot tell you how to resist. It is not my place to make self-aggrandizing statements about the "right way to protest" while I sit in a comfortable library, miles away from the carnage. In many ways, I gave up a long time ago. But, I will tell you this. You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. If you can burn enough to let yourself see, if you can have grit enough to steady your footsteps, then you are much closer to the light than the greasy, glutting guilt of pain and inaction.
Being a killer is easy. They're not capable of what you're going to do.
Oh boy, it's been a minute! So much has happened in the past two weeks that I barely know where to start. And yes, I am typing this with a big assignment and deadline looming over me (but it wouldn't be a Pleistocene blog entry without it). As seen above, I went to London yet again last weekend. I took a poor picture of the Monument to the Great Fire of London, and I should have taken a picture of the Latin inscription on its side, which Hummingbird and I tried to read aloud and translated less than every other word.
One of the best things that happened is on the Tuesday before last: I went to a Lewis Society lecture on Greek influences in Till We Have Faces compared with a novel called The Corn King and the Spring Queen by Naomi Mitchison. The tenuous connection between the two was that Lewis had read Corn King and apparently did not like it very much. It was a lecture I had great difficulty paying attention to because an elderly man in the front kept dozing off every few seconds and snoring very loudly. People in the audience exchanged amused looks every time. I sat behind a fellow named Roger who does tours around Oxford (based around Lewis and Tolkien) as well as a friar in a full habit from Blackfriars College (where the event was being held). I must make a point of it to go back, because there were long, twisting cloisters that smelled very strongly of incense. There was a Compline service afterwards that I regret not attending, but at this point it was getting very late in the evening and I had a date with the sandman.
Then, Hummingbird came to visit that Sunday! We went to a Candlemas Evensong at the Keble Chapel. The candle wax burned me (twice!) right after all the candles were blessed by Father Max, so I can only assume I have some kind of demonic presence. Hummingbird and I had a lovely formal dinner, and I realized how much more fun all the pomp and circumstance is when you have one to share it with.
Guess who went to London on Saturday! The whole trip was magical, and I don't say that lightly. I'm not usually a fan of trips to big cities- all the smells and noises and lack of space aren't normally worth it for me. Being on that dumb, touristy bridge at sunset, the setting sun blazing behind the Speaker's House and Big Ben... it all seemed to be worth it.
The best place to start is usually at the beginning: my 8:30 train out of Oxford was cancelled (thank you, privatized train system) and so I had a more relaxed journey to the station. I walked over the Castle Mill Stream as the sun rose, yellow beams dancing on the water. As you may have guessed, we don't get much sun in Oxford in January, and the morning light wrapped around the dreaming spires is a beautiful thing. It was a short trip to Reading, then an hour-long ride to Richmond. I read The Hobbit, and was taken off-guard by the (almost Lewis-like) asides that Tolkien sprinkles into his writing:
"Bilbo wished he were at home. It was not the last time he wished that!" And the like.
From Richmond there was another short trip to Barnes, the official stop for the University of Roehampton (which I mistakenly believed was Putney). Hummingbird met me at the station, and what a relief to see her! I hadn't realized how solitary I'd become in the past month. Nothing like the appearance of an old and dear friend to remind you how life should be lived. We took the bus to her campus, had tea and biscuits, and set off to find some lunch for it was already 12 o'clock. We got lost on the way and H apologized profusely, but I was just happy to stretch my legs after the long train trip. We walked through a little grove on-campus and I realized how much I miss the lush foliage of Oregon. The last time I saw that many trees was in the University Parks in Oxford, and I couldn't believe how long I'd gone without seeing something green. No wonder I've been half-crazed.
We had a nice lunch at a Korean place on High Street- I got chicken bibimbap that made me remember how much I love, nay, need rice. Have I seriously been eating dry fridge rice for this long? Shame on me. All these details are probably terribly boring to any reasonable reader, but somehow I feel compelled to record everything for posterity. After a jaunt to a corner shop we took the bus back to Roehampton and overheard some certified London Lads with great accents ("Innit, bruv?! You been down t'Alice's 'ouse yestaday? Them gi'ls is FUUUUUCKED"). I would have liked to be a London Lad, just for a day. I'd vape near storefronts and wear my pants way too low as if it were still 2004. Anyway, we took the bus once again to Barnes to catch a train to London Waterloo, which plunked us right in the middle of everything. We spent a while taking photos (I've become more amenable to the activity after becoming a blogger) so you must forgive me for the incoming onslaught:
Westminster Abbey was closed for tours, so Hummingbird and I went to the gift shop. I didn't get anything out of frugality (miserliness?) though I was feeling drawn towards the Paddington section. I feel an odd kinship with that fictional bear- I suppose I just want people to be patient with me, and keep their expectations low enough so I can make mistakes without feeling disastrous. Regarding the picture above- Westminster has a sundial!
Seeing as we were in the area, we made a quick stop at, oh, I don't know, Buckingham Palace. How's that for surreal?
We made the impulsive decision to go to Westminster Abbey for Evensong, and as photography was forbidden I have no pictures of the occasion. Hummingbird and I walked back to the abbey in great haste to make it on time, and size of the place alone was enough to take my breath away.
"Oh my God!" I said before I immediately regretted it.
The walkways seemed to go on forever, and every step thundered around the walls- no sound escaped amplification. Countless memorials covered the walls and floor. Burials sat around gates, stone carvings lying in repose atop the graves. It seemed like its own city, and I imagined hiding behind a tomb until after the doors were locked and the candles extinguished. There was much to look at, until there wasn't, because Hummingbird and I were sat in the far back. We couldn't see much of anything, and even the television showing the choir was far away. It was still a wonderful service, and once I sang (very badly) the hymn at the end, I could confidently say I had sung in Westminster Abbey. The other attendants were at varying levels of attention- I could tell that some just wanted to score free entry, and were overconfident in their ability to handle half an hour straight of church music in German. A young kid was sitting in the row ahead of Hummingbird and I, and kept turning around to give us curious stares. This happened again with a different child yesterday- I don't look like THAT much of a freak, do I?
More pictures from the bridge, I'm afraid. Didn't James Bond's car explode here, once? Maybe Parliament exploded or something. In any case, nighttime London is BRIGHT. Hummingbird and I took the train back to Barnes, and accidentally took the bus in entirely the wrong direction. It ended up being for the best, though, because we had burgers in a sleepy little pub. I got 30,000 steps that day, so I was ravenous.
It was then that the most marvelous thing happened: We left the pub via the front door, and a little fox, more tawney-brown than red, was sitting on the sidewalk and looking back and forth at the street before it. It sat directly beneath a streetlight, and seemed for a moment to be the most important thing in the world. It made a sudden dart across the quiet road, and I ran alongside it for a few seconds before it made a swift U-turn and disappeared into the night. I know it sounds insane, (to believe in the fantastic and whatnot) but I felt like I had made the right choice, coming here. All I've been shown is that I don't belong- the fox seemed too convenient for that to be true.
Hummingbird and I went back to Roehampton, had some trouble with her keycard, and watched a short Dance Moms compilation while eating ice cream and banana milk. How those dancers didn't murder their mothers in their sleep, I'll never know. By this point 9PM came and went, and I started to get nervous. The last train out of Barnes was at around 9:45, and H and I didn't make it to the bus stop until 9:30. The bus came and went (because APPARENTLY you have to hail buses in London- they don't just stop if they see people at the bus stop. City of hooligans!) It was the eleventh hour, metaphorically, and I knew what I had to do. It was a 15-minute walk to the bus stop according to Google, so I made a break for it and started sprinting like a madman, laden with all my winter clothing. Poor H was getting left behind, but I could only yell back:
"It's the last train! I CAN'T get stuck in London!"
At the last, I reached the train in the nick of time, sweating and panicked and shaking and red in the face. I had done it! There were a few concerning train departure delays, but the trip was largely seamless. At one point I sat near a group of beer-drinking dudes, who were clearly former Lads but had aged out of that category. One of them was telling a charming story about yelling at a woman after she told him off for doing a line of ketamine in the train station.
The train from Reading to Oxford was standing-room only, but I truly didn't care. I just wanted a cold shower and my bed after all that running. The Oxford station was empty and locked-up when I arrived, and I hurried down the midnight streets to my dorm. It was raining heavily and I passed many people in Kilts (Burns Night) so I felt like I was in some sort of exhaustion-induced amalgamated Scottish-English hallucination. Remind me to never take the train that late again.
Sunday was nice and uneventful, and this morning I found out that one of my dorm-mates had decided to leave some stinking raw chicken in the fridge. I took one for the team and threw it out (and washed up the bowl) and I think these people need a serious food safety lecture. Why on Earth am I doing all the work?
As I write this, my Medieval Monasticism tutor has just cancelled on me a second time because he's ill. One can't control these things, but boy am I worried about my immune system. You never realize how often people cough until you're caught out in the open without a mask. I'd better stop here, and as Sir Thomas Malory once implored, pray for me (and my health!)
BOY am I making up for the lack of images last time! Many things happening on this side of the pond. As seen in the image above, I am now the proud owner of a copy of The Hobbit which just happened to come with a free hot chocolate. If you're ever in Oxford, check out "Gulp Fiction" in the Covered Market! Get a book and a coffee while you're at it! Free advertising aside, I should start with my visit to the National Gallery in Londinium.
This is "Saint George and the Dragon" by Paolo Uccello and I cannot for the life of me remember where I saw this first. I swear I had a book as a young child with this painting in it. I remember the target-like design on the dragon's wings so vividly. It was so surreal to see it in person, I must say.
Behold, the bottom half of "Saint Michael Triumphs over the Devil" by Bartolomé Bermejo. Emphasis on the devil. Does he have glass nipples? Who can say. I sent this to my friend "Tomcat" who replied with:
"now i don't say this often but what the hell is that"
In that spirit, I poked my head into a fancy stationery store in downtown Oxford the other day (with plenty of Italian-made paper and none of it affordable) and it had this perplexing scene on the second floor. I was both charmed and unsettled, a feeling that I'm getting used to here in grand old Oxford.
You thought I was done with museums, didn't you? Just this afternoon I had a lovely time at the Ashmolean Museum, which is free to enter and much larger than I thought it would be. Look at these fabulous citterns! I took many more pictures but found a lot of them to be blurry. What is this curse placed upon my phone camera?!
This is the Ändersta Rune Stone from the 12th century (insane) that was given to the Ashmolean in the 17th century (ALSO insane). I tried to do a sketch of it but failed horribly because I was rushing. I need to come back and sit down with my proper sketchbook and pencil. The Ashmolean was very quiet and empty when I was there- the perfect place to draw! (As well as contemplate the passage of time/the significant life choices I've made/what to have for dinner).
For the final picture, here's the dessert course for my fancy formal dinner at Keble College. I wore my new suit and marvelled at every dish that ceremoniously arrived. Perhaps pomp indeed has its place? This cheesecake, however delightful looking, was a bit sour to my taste, as it was to everyone else at the table. Complaints echoed around the cavernous hall. The cake itself was overpoweringly lemony, the cream-thing was just strangely thick whipped cream, and the neon dots of something were even more sour than the cake. The cookie crumbs on the bottom, though artfully plated, did resemble sand.
Not pictured, but before dinner, I ended up delivering a reading at the chapel service! Here it is:
The second lesson is taken from the Epistle to the Philippians, beginning at the fourth verse of the fourth chapter.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. As for the things that you have learned and received and heard and noticed in me, do them, and the God of peace will be with you.
Quite a nice passage! And not to toot my own horn, but I got many compliments. My friend Owl thought I should have smiled more when I sent her the recording, though- she's never happy about anything so I wouldn't heed her opinion too much.
On the academic side of things, I got my Gawain paper turned in on time (score!) and it definitely could have been better. I got good feedback on it, and I wish I had given myself more time to get it done. There's just so much to do! I've got a meeting with my Medieval Monasticism tutor tomorrow and I still feel like I don't have a robust enough idea of the "Desert Father" monastics despite having read 3 (admittedly short-ish) books on them this week. It's never enough! I need to balance my time better, but I also want to take my time with the readings and absorb as much as I can. And I want to spend as little time as possible writing, which I know is a one-way trip to Mediocre (at best) Town. It's just so strange to not have proper classes. I love bantering with classmates and talking to professors in their offices and that's all gone now. I only see my professors once a week for an hour- what am I supposed to do, make friends my own age?! Preposterous.
Though, I did get to go to a Tolkien Society meeting yesterday! It was very small (5 people) and we watched The Two Towers with the volume down so we could read the lines for the specific characters. I was Gollum, Merry and Eomer. I think I did a pretty good Gollum, though it was mostly alternating between half-shrieks and gutteral distressed noises. It was only two hours so I didn't make any lifelong besties, but everyone was very nice and I'm looking forward to game night next week.
At this point, I've kind of given up on making real friends here. I know it's still early days, but I'll be content with wrestling with Oxford while I can, then making my way back Stateside to be with the friends I already hold dear: to be with Owl, and Tomcat, and "Lord Squirrel" (I hope she'll react well to that nickname!)
AND I'm headed back to the great Roman city of London on Saturday to visit Hummingbird! I hope the trains don't give up at the first sight of cold weather. It is England, after all- if I've learned anything, it's that Brits are delicate waifs that complain at the gentlest drizzle. Not to say that we Yanks are any better. I definitely don't miss the highway road rage.
Well, I'm off to do more reading, and hope my tutor doesn't bite my head off tomorrow for not finishing all of John Cassian (if I even get to him...) much like Saint Antony, I am tormented by demons, though mine are entirely of my own making. Oh! And in response to my last entry: the sandwich did not provide an answer, but it was only £4 and the size of my head, so beggars can't be choosers. Either I can have the secrets of the universe or a sandwich, and I know a sandwich will make me feel much better.
Don't have as many pictures for y'all today- yesterday it was pouring rain and I was really out of it for some reason. I walked past The Eagle and Child, colloquially known as The Bird and Baby, knowing that I won't be able to visit it until it reopens next year. I wonder if I'll find myself in this town again. I'd need a reason to come back. I went to the Schwarzman Humanities Library yesterday morning, and I was happily surprised to find that the non-library spaces are very much not silent. There was convivial chatter all around me, and it was much easier to focus and feel at ease. I have a problem with building things up in my head until they're impossibly important. Like this paper, for instance. I have to finish it by Monday, so I'd better make lots of progress today. It's about "there and back again" in Gawain and Pearl, whatever that means. I have this strange feeling like I've never written a paper before in my life, despite having done it many times (in a few rare instances, to great success!)
Back to the library. I texted my friend "Hummingbird" and reflected on what it means for an incredibly old building to still be in use.
[1/15/26, 10:39:30 AM] Pleistocene:
so I’m sitting in the humanities library which is very slick and modern
and it’s nicer in here because there isn’t a silence rule so there’s distant chatter
and I realized that working in the radcam is kind of offputting because when you sit in a very old building you just notice all the modern things that feel unnatural
like I’m sitting in this 18th century building but it has wifi and bathrooms and computers
it feels a little grotesque
like a contorted identity
can something old be used in the modern day without losing its identity?
I don’t know if it can
[1/15/26, 11:24:30 AM] Hummingbird:
Not unless its historicity is preserved
We didn't get to continue the conversation, but I've been thinking about it. When you take a place out of its context, it ends up being changed in some way. Even if you have an historical site that's very well-preserved (ignoring all Ship of Theseus materiality qualms) it's still something of a relic. People come to see castles because they're old, not because they have dealings with their local lord. People still drink in the Lamb and Flag, yes, but its age makes it something of an attraction. So how can a building (or other sort of place) age gracefully? How are we meant to consider the old spires of Oxford whilst stuck on the ground amongst the gentrified chain restaurants?
Is this interesting to read about? I have no idea. It's lunchtime, so I'm off to get a sandwich and I'll try to return with answers.
Another day, another entry. Had a bit of a weird one today: I started it in the Rad Cam, as seen above, and I reread Pearl in modern English (which took a fraction of the time that it did when in Middle English, but I still feel like I don't GET the darn thing. I'm sick of pearls! Make her adorned with car tires for all I care!!)
But before that, though, I thoroughly humiliated myself by repeatedly tugging at the card-entry-only door, as a guard from inside looked on. This isn't even my first time in here, I'll remind you. I took a picture of the Gladstone Link (according to Wikipedia, the colloquial term would be, delightfully, "the Glink") when I went into the beast's lower belly to retrieve a copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. You heard that right, Gawain is back for Pleistocene's season two. Here's the promised picture:
I had quite the wrestle with the old Bodleian today. I couldn't find one of my books on the shelf, and I had a hard time finding seating. I understand doing your work in a library: what better place than an old, iconic Oxford institution? But the fact of the matter is, I can't take any of these books out of the building, and I need a darn place to sit. I even saw a guy watching a video game stream on his laptop in the packed Keble library. Come on, dude. All these libraries with their inconsistent rules and forbidden borrowing and faux-silence. My footsteps felt so loud, and the sounds of keyboard clicking and general shuffling were deafening. When I left the fabled dome I saw numerous tourists stalking about the edges of the place, and I don't think it's really sunk in yet. I walk around on these old streets, a newly minted Bod user, and I can't understand the significance of all the dead people that used to walk over those same stones. Really, I can't feel them.
I went into the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin later that day, and its age and significance were entirely lost on me. Am I numb? Dumb? I cannot tell.
The church was nearly empty, and my mind was too cluttered for me to sit and take everything in. I perched restlessly on the edge of the pew, staring up at the star-studded ceiling. Little gold pricks poking through a distant and dark firmament. I haven't seen any real stars here yet- I suppose it's too bright and polluted in the city. Back home, in the wide open plains, the stars are faint and distant but they are bright enough that you want to stare at them until someone drags you away. How can you be sure of anything when the stars are so far away?
All this contemplative torpor was tempered by a nice Keble lunch and a visit to Blackwell's (here's a joke for my friend "Owl": it's bigger on the inside!)
That's it for today! I'm tired. I'll see you later, hopefully when I've grasped the "theologian's allegory" of Pearl.
Phew, it's been a minute! Let me catch you up. I arrived in Oxford, settled in, and took many a blurry photo. I shall try to select only the very best for this entry. (I have SO many more pictures. I'll add them to my gallery!) Of course, the image above is the famed Radcliffe Camera, a massive library that is unfortunately a little stuffy inside during the winter. Excitingly, there exists a tunnel below ground leading to the other Bodleian libraries. It's called the Gladstone Link- look it up!
Keble College's distinctive brickwork was the design of architect William Butterfield, as I was told. People HATED it back in the day- there's a little story about how one of the graduation requirements for St. John's College was stealing a brick from Keble, in the hope that one day the whole thing would crumble. It is rather lasagna-like, but to be honest it's grown on me. Besides, with a gorgeous chapel interior, how can it not?
Again, apologies for the image quality. I can't tell if I'm bad at photography, my phone is just old, or both. There are some wonderful mosaics in here- when I come back I'll have to take pictures of the English (that's right, not Latin!) on the walls. You see, Keble was supposed to be a more accessible Oxford college for the less aristocratic populations (meaning upper middle class at the very least, of course). There's numerous features in the architecture to reflect that- such as the massive dining hall!
As a USAmerican used to soda cups the size of my head, I can't honestly say the size of this place was particularly affecting. However, it IS the largest dining hall in Oxford, reflecting the "mission," so to speak, of Keble.
Skipping ahead a few days, I went on a quest through Oxford to find the J.R.R. Tolkien bench (I know, shocking behavior for me). On the way, I happened upon St. Michael at the North Gate. I sat inside for a little while, and then permitted myself to snag a few photos, despite feeling horribly obnoxious and touristy. I felt like I was desecrating a centuries-old place of worship, (whilst people were actively praying) which, let's face it, I was. Luckily I don't think anybody saw. Enjoy these photos, for I took them by risking my immortal soul!
A Pleistocene-eye view of the stained glass! As you might have guessed, I'm a bit short. One of my professors-let's call him "Badger"-confessed to me that if he could go back in time, he'd learn how to make stained glass "the old way." I hope I can take home enough pictures of stained glass to make him happy :)
Later that day, I reached my destination: the J.R.R. Tolkien bench in University Parks. I sat for a while, writing and reflecting in my little notebook, until my hands got too cold and I had to get up again. Supposedly the bench is supposed to be betwixt two trees representing Laurelin and Telperion, although only one of them looked reasonably grand enough to be a tree of Valinor. I found this explanation on the Oxford website:
This seems to imply that there is no current Laurelin at all, despite the fact that I saw a small (and indeed rather diseased-looking) tree on the left side of the bench. Perhaps it's an unrelated tree? I shall have to ask around. What a mystery.
This was the view from the bench on that chilly day: the River Cherwell and some imperious-looking geese. I had a fantastic walk there- a dog ran up to me and I patted his little head, and he looked jolly indeed.
I went past a little gate after crossing over the river, and ended up in this large meadow. It was cold and sunny, and I almost completely submerged my (thankfully waterproof) shoes in a deceptively wet and muddy part of the field. I felt like Elizabeth Bennet trudging through the English countryside to retrieve her sick sister. Going further, I walked on a lovely little trail that ended up in a residential area next to somewhere called Meadowbrook College (not affiliated with the university). I had apparently walked quite a ways, despite not feeling like it. Everything here is so obscenely close by, to the point that a 10 minute walk feels like it takes ages. I miss my half-hour-long romps to Portland coffee shops. Of course, Oxford is not lacking in coffee by any means, and it's not like I can pass a medieval wall on my way to a latte in PDX! I must keep exploring.
Rounding out the photo dump is the lentil slop I made! It looks terrible, but it tasted alright. It was my attempt at making spinach garlic dal, and it was much nicer after making the garlic tadka. Could have used more garlic though- I'll keep that in mind for next time. Oh, how I miss fresh vegetables. I'll take a picture for my next entry, but everything in the stores here is so over-packaged. I feel so separated from my produce. There is allegedly an Oxford farmer's market that I simply MUST find, because I don't know how many more plastic-bagged courgettes I can take.
To be very honest, I've been feeling weird these past few days. Everyone in the program has been very nice, and even made efforts to include me in things, but I find socializing so exhausting. I miss my friends back home, I miss my dog, and it's not like I want to go home already- I'd be terriby bored! I just don't fit in here. All the British people I've met are very normal, it's the Americans that I take issue with! They all drink and go to clubs and just aren't my vibe. I know I'm being overly judgemental, but it's hard to find common ground with people you don't relate to, especially if you're a raging autistic like me. I always find myself sitting in silence, having no idea what to say. To add insult to injury, nobody here is studying medievalism, despite it being one of the core subjects of the program! Having one shared kitchen doesn't help either- when I cook my lentil slop, I want to do it alone. I hope I'm not coming off as too standoffish with my headphones on and whatnot (I probably look terribly rude and impersonable) but I simply don't feel like talking when I'm trying to make dinner. Oh, who am I kidding, I don't want to talk ever. And then there's the city itself- HORRIBLY creepy at night. People go out in groups, which is much safer, but I just want to walk around alone, which means I'm pretty much unable to leave the building after 4 PM. I worry about joining clubs, since they all meet after sunset. How will I join the Tolkien Society and then get to my room without getting Agatha Christie'd on the way back? I know I have to give things more of a chance. I really thought I'd fit in more than I actually do. Oh well.
On that cheery note, I'll try my darndest to figure out how to set up my gallery for a proper photo repository. In the meantime, I'll see you in the next entry (which hopefully won't take as long to get around to!)
Reader, I made it. I caught my connecting flight, and I am currently in London! Took a black cab, went to the British Museum, and tried desperately not to fall asleep. I'm not making it easy for myself, considering the fact that it's freezing and I'm very cozy right now. I head to Oxford tomorrow, but for now, pictures!
I was INCREDIBLY excited to see casts of Persepolis- there were actual portions of the city as well, although I'm not sure if they were rightfully acquired. Well, who am I kidding, of course they weren't. I wrote a paper on the political implications of Persepolis's design last year, and not to toot my own horn, but it was one of my best. "The Apadana! In front of me!" I quite literally jumped for joy, disturbing the fellow museumgoers.
This very cool citole!
The guy! It's the guy!!
Did I mention it was snowing? My very first day in London, and it snowed. What a crazy day!
Over the summer I did some digging into Cernunnos (and his various disputed equivalents) so this little guy was very exciting to see!
After crashing and sleeping for probably far too long, I'd say it was a fruitful first day indeed.
It's travel day! Already things have started going downhill. My flight was delayed, and I don't know if I'll make it on time to my flight to London. All I want is to go to an old English parish church! Woe! Now I'm sitting and waiting in the airport, where time passes both impossibly slowly and inconcievably quickly, depending on whether you're early or late. Horrible, awful invention, airports. Why couldn't I just ride a horse to England over a landbridge connecting Europe and the Americas? I would meet a wacky cast of characters and we'd become mercenary magicians. Spells and assassinations for cash. Then I could perhaps charter a caravel or a galley for the final hop to the British Isles. Oh, I hate air travel. Sitting for long hours in a cramped seat in a dry pressurized metal can. And of course, the fact that I have no way of controlling when my flight departs and whether I make it to my next one.
It is the day before I depart for Oxford! There is furious packing to be done, but I think I'm starting to get so caught up in the excitement of it all that I don't even feel very anxious about it. There is the jetlag to worry about- I don't want to be a zombie dragging myself around London. Alas, such things are not to be in my control.