In June of 1988, I went to Europe with 36 others Aggies on the pretense of studying international finance. Our professor encouraged to keep journals, so I had a great record of the trip. This is from 32 years ago today.
Day 19: London - Saturday, June 18, 1988 At this point, we started to feel a financial pinch. When we arrived, we were unfamiliar with the nuances of travel money management, but we were in relatively inexpensive places, where a frivolous incidental expense didn't hurt you. Too, most of us had budgeted roughly the same amount of money for each day, regardless how expensive a particular city was or how many activities were planned for a particular day. We arrived in London having developed a feel for how to spend and save, even as we found ourselves in our most costly city. Joe summed up a popular policy when he said, "I'm gonna start living by the laws of the poor man." So God Save the Queen because the National Gallery is free. The Gallery is one of the buildings surrounding Trafalgar Square, which centers around a skyscraping monument jutting a statue of Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson high above everything in sight. Horace (may I call you "Horace?") must have a great view.
Anyway, some of the finest art on Earth is available for public consumption at no charge. I'm not very familiar with the world of art, but I can admire the artistry in the paint strokes from my own viewpoint. Besides, we figured we couldn't lose in a place like this. The price was certainly right. In fact, we just went in a random door, which happened to turn up the Van Goghs and the Picassos. There were "only" two Van Goghs. I say "only" because one was "Sunflowers." (The other was "A Cornfield With Cypresses.") Both were painted late in Van Gogh's life, the latter while he was institutionalized, and his deteriorating mental health is apparent in his art. In "Sunflowers," the flowers look like eyes staring at the viewer; admirably executed, but extremely disturbing. "Cornfield" is a landscape, but the idyllic scene looks fearful. The corn stalks look like flames. The clouds looks like smoke emitted by those flames. The mountains look not snow-capped, but ice-capped. Near the Van Goghs is a room full of Picassos. I'm not a big fan of Pablo Picasso. A friend of mine from high school said he hated Picasso because thanks to him anyone with the audacity to splash paint on a canvas and admit they'd done so had an excuse to call themselves an "artist." I consider this opinion extreme, but justified. I do like some of Picasso's paintings, but none of those works were in the National Gallery. The finance degree holder in me is still impressed by how much a room containing 16 Picasso paintings, 4 Picasso sketches, and 3 Picasso sculptures must be worth. Since I'd found myself in a prestigious art museum anyway, I was looking forward to seeing the work of Thomas Gainsborough. To give you an idea of my art awareness, this was not because I was at all familiar with his work, but because he's mentioned in a song by the Kinks called "20th Century Man." (Ray Davies also mentions Rembrandt in the song. I'd heard of Rembrandt, though.) Gainsborough's "Cornard Wood" impressed me because it captured exceptionally well a popular theme from this period: man looks small against the elements. In an eight foot tall painting, the bottom two feet may feature people, while the top portion of the painting depicts sky, mountains, and rivers trickling through lush wooded lands. "The Watering Place" is similar, and is particularly striking for the way Gainsborough depicts light reflecting off the water. Gainsborough also impressed me with his portraits. I'm convinced that viewing Gainsborough and Rembrandt can teach you everything there is to know about painted portraits.
The Gallery is full of educational value as well. I found out the book of Judith existed through the painting by Johann Liss: "Judith in the tent of Holofernes." Judith is in the Apocrypha rather than the Holy Bible, probably because the book messes up a lot of facts, such as who was king of which historical empire and when. Also, the premise that Judith used feminine wiles to get Holofernes in a trusting and vulnerable position could be considered problematic. Liss's painting shows the results of Judith's visit; she's topless while holding a sword in one hand and the enemy general's head in the other. (Groooooooosss!! The detached head, I mean.) Although Liss certainly left an indelible mark with his work, I more enjoyed Bartolomι Murillo's trilogy. For all the skill displayed in "The Adoration of the Shepherds," "The Two Trinities" (Christ links Heaven and Earth,) and "Christ Healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethsheba," what got me was their size. I had it in my unconscious mind that paintings had size limitations set by the Pompous Art Critic Bureau of Turned-up Noses. Apparently, Murillo ignored this stricture; his paintings were each 18 feet tall. Any painting in the National Gallery deserves attention, but I'll close our visit with a comment on "Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life" by Harmen Steenwyck. It featured a skull, a sword, sea-shells, books, musical instruments, a watch, and a freshly-snuffed-out-lamp. I didn't get it until I read the commentary about it. Once the symbols were explained (the watch is time, the lamp is the extinguished life, etc.) I could get inside the painting and enjoy it, but it didn't work the other way around. I guess this could be seen as a deficiency in the painting, but I suspect the problem was the unschooled viewer. Despite the freedom of the National Gallery, we paid the price for not being able to pay the price. After passing a mass of protestors gathered around the South African embassy, Joe, Dalton, and I stood in a long line at the Tower of London, admiring the huge moat as we followed the railing, only to go into sticker shock at the £4.50 admission price. The Trennepohls met us at the head of the line because they'd bought advance tickets. Dr T worked for a living; he could do that. After washing out at the Tower, we ate at the Griffin, and met two interesting folks who sadly weren't interesting enough to stick in my memory. My journal plainly says they were interesting, though. From there we strolled along the Thames. This was our day for blue sky - British Common Law says you only get one such day per visit to London, and this was ours. We saw Cleoparta's needle, with its two sphinxes keeping watch from either side of it. Why isn't Cleopatra's Needle in Egypt? I discussed this question with my uncle after the trip; as he eloquently put it, to a Britisher, the Needle is a curio from another land they used to plunder on occasion. To an Egyptian, the Needle is a part of who he is. So why is Cleopatra's Needle in London instead of Egypt? I guess so we could see it. Another site in the area is a church named All-Hollows by the Tower. I'm not sure what this sanctuary might mean to a Londoner, but William Penn was baptised there, and John Quincy Adams was married there, so at least Americans have a vested heritage there.
You think you know London, but we tripped over a great surprise there. Still milling around the Tower Bridge/London Bridge area, we found the Monument to St Magnus. The Monument is a tower which marks where the London Fire started in 1666. The top of the tower marks with gold the location, give or take a block, of the tenth-story room where the fire began. (We never did find out what St Magnus had to do with any of this.) A large portion of the city was destroyed in that fire. To a Londoner, a "modern" building is one constructed SINCE the London Fire; an "old" building predates the fire. Like any tower with commercial potential, not to mention the Hotel Alkistis, the Monument to St Magnus holds a spiral stairwell leading interested parties to a view of the city that the great fire slowed down but could not destroy. Joe and I wanted to go to the top. Dalton didn't, but he weighed the choice between an unenticing stair climb up a tower and a tedious wait at the bottom of same and decided to go along. Along the way are several mysterious seven foot tall indentions in the wall where statues could be but aren't. Joe stood in one for laughs, looking like a Sarcophagus-residing Egyptian Pharoah - except for the glasses, the haircut, the t-shirt, the blue jeans, the sneakers, the watch, and the camera around his neck. From the top of the Monument to St Magnus, we could gaze all around us and absorb the majesty and resplendence that is London. But first, we had look past the cranes. They were all over the city; facing one direction I could fit six into one photograph. Maybe that's a sign of age. London is a high maintenance city, and it needed a face lift. The cranes couldn't overshadow the Thames, though. The gothic towers in the 100-year old Tower Bridge stand among the modern buildings to either side with a lordship that surpasses anachronism. The H.M.S. Belfast was to our side of the Tower Bridge. The skyscrapers that make up London's current business district were straight ahead of us when we faced the Thames at a right angle. Once we descended the Monument, we took a close-up look at London Bridge. What a letdown. In one of history's most notorious examples of tradition and heritage being steamrolled by one individual's self-importance, the original London Bridge was purchased from the city and moved to Arizona, of all places. In a way, this serves England right; the British are usually the perpetrators of these culture crimes rather than the victims. Nonetheless, the bridge fabled in story and song has been replaced by a modern, plain, drab, generic bridge that could belong to any city. The view of the Tower Bridge and the Belfast only emphasized how culturally vapid the newer London Bridge is.
London Bridge wasn't falling down (we didn't care much whether it was or not), but for a second we thought it might be on fire. Several London firemen, decked out in yellow hats and pants with black jackets, were piling into an Underground stop. (What a New Yorker would call the subway is called the Underground in London. To a Brit, a subway is a below-ground walkway from one side of an excessively busy intersection to the other.) We didn't seek out the events which attracted the fire fighters, but we thought about taking each others' pictures while standing on the edge of the fire truck like we were on our way to the blaze. We chickened out. From there, we went to St Paul's Cathedral. The dome on St Paul's is so massive that you always think the cathedral is just a block away. Even if you're several hundred yards away from it, you expect it to be around the next corner. Then you make the turn and find two more blocks to walk. The steps up to the entrance of St Paul's would make a good sized auditorium. Services were being conducted when we arrived, so we couldn't take pictures or roam the building, but we could move about one wing. Literature about the Catholic faith was available on several shelves full of pamphlets; the personnel at St Paul were clearly prepared to help visitors who weren't used to having a religious experience. We also saw enough to confirm that this place was very, very large. As we returned to the hotel, I pondered what we'd just seen. How much money did it cost to construct this gigantic building? How many people could have been fed, and for how long, if this money had bought food for the poor instead? Does the grandeur of even this building justify that toll? In light of this, has this building, in terms of challenging its creators, uplifting its visitors and perhaps focusing them upon the Creator for Whom it was built, justified its own existence? Or since we'll always have the poor, should we continue aspire to these achievements, as long as we remember to help those in need as well? I pondered these questions as we returned to our hotel. We'd acclimated to our room by this time, despite the closet space problem. We had clothes hanging on a hook on the door of the room. We left the dresser open so its doors could double as racks for towels and for clothes on hangers. Our most innovative move was hanging shirts from the basket-like lampshades on the same ceiling lamps Joe had been swinging around the day before. Keeping each lampshade balanced was nearly impossible, but hey, we were guys. Balancing the lampshade with shirts concerned us as a scientific challenge even more than as an aesthetic accent, so it kept us occupied until we had to get dressed for the play. Along the way to the venue, we saw the Piccadilly Circus, the center of the theatre district. It's really all tacky advertising, a lot like Times Square in New York, but it retains a British dignity that I couldn't explain for the life of me. Our tickets were for Mousetrap at St Martin's Theatre. Mousetrap is a play by Agatha Christie which had been playing at St Martin's since 1952. The walls of the lobby are draped with programs from previous shows. St Martin's is an old theatre, built for a generation shorter in stature than ours. I sat next to Dalton, who's 5'6", and HIS knees were scrunched against the seat ahead of him. I'm 6'0", but fortunately, I had an aisle seat; my legs dangled three steps down the stairs leading down to the stage.
Mousetrap begins with the first three notes of the "Three Blind Mice" played on piano, followed by a gunshot. (This fact came in handy a couple of years later when I was watching "Jeopardy!" with my parents. "How did you know THAT?" they said.) Mousetrap features a cabin full of suspects, all snowbound so that the culprit couldn't escape. For the first half of the play, the characters compare each other's motives, fairly standard in a murder mystery. Alliances begin to form, but as people start vouching for each other's character, the detective investigating the crime cautions them that they may not know their comrades as well as they think. "Everyone's a stranger," he warns. During the intermission, I ran into Dr Trennepohl and he asked me whodunit. I always get sucked into these things and fall for every piece of bait that leads me away from the killer, but I gave my opinions anyway. One of my theories involved some pretty intricate links among a group of characters; I hedged on this one by telling Dr Trennepohl I wasn't very familiar with Agatha Christie's work, and "I'm not sure how neatly she ties up her packages." "She usually ties them pretty neatly," Dr T assured me. It turns out there were bows on this package, none of which I guessed. I won't spoil the whole play for you. I'll just tell you one thing. The detective did it.
I had trouble getting to sleep that night, which turned out to be a blessing. It gave me something like a moment to myself (the other four guys were asleep) so I could finish writing the lyrics to "Gettin' Close." The line "Everyone's a stranger" from Mousetrap provided a finishing touch. The "love on a deadline" phrase came from a conversation I had with Darren the last night of the cruise; he'd grown cozy with one of the Canadian ladies and was a little regretful of the temporary nature of the relationship.
GETTIN' CLOSE by Mark Kusenberger brace yourself here for the whirlwind tour fasten seatbelts to be sure that you're secure more sights to see than you could take in twice the time nevermind to meet the people 'long the line we'll all be torn apart just as soon as it hurts the most we're just gonna say goodbye someday there's no use gettin' close the friendly neighbours try to help you to survive but everyone's a stranger trying to hide and the passenger next to you is no easier to get inside you'll go crazy if you're faced with love on a deadline we'll all be torn apart just as soon as it hurts the most we're just gonna say goodbye someday there's no use gettin' close before I start I am convinced I'll be defeated I'm not even sure how I really want to be treated 'cuz I'm a puzzle anyway in what passes for normal life nevermind here on a cruiseship out to sea I'm still me I hear them say "I'll write you someday and I'll drop in on you just as soon as I head your way" but we all know the letters trickle and subside best intentions can't escape the time and tide we'll all be torn apart just as soon as it hurts the most we're just gonna say goodbye someday there's no use gettin' close
"Getting Close" ended up being a lot more personal than what I had in mind, but it very well expressed my thoughts on the friendships during retreats. I also didn't intend for it to be so harsh and fatalistic, either, but I have felt that way many times. That's not a knock on my classmates. I just saw it as facing up to a reality.
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