“This is an authentic 13th Century carving,” said Paul Hyams, “and I know it is because I saw it done myself.” The recently-retired Cornell professor has all the dryness of an hourglass, a sharply British wit that would’ve made him an excellent screenwriter, but instead led him (tragically) down the path of academia. Hyams was […]
Monthly archives for January, 2014
New, Old, Just Out of Sight
There’s something wonderful about meeting old friends in new places. You are you and they are they and there you all are, a thousand miles away from where you met a thousand years ago. I had the pleasure, yesterday, of meeting a number of old compadres in London’s East End. The first, Zoya, an artist […]
Luke Drinks Tea
After an afternoon spent admiring decapitated statues and Zulu headrests (keep your hair styled! keep the bugs out! keep in touch with dead relatives!) at the British Museum, Luke and I went to the Twinings Tea Shop. I should mention now that Luke’s passion for tea far exceeds that of a normal man. Luke’s tea-drive rivals […]
Told by an Idiot
My feet are sore; my knees are tired. Luke and I spent Sunday puzzling through London’s maze of indistinguishable street names – Highbury Place, Highbury Park, Highbury Crescent, Highbury Hill, Highbury Grange, Highbury Terrace, Highbury Terrace Mews, Highbury Station Road – I’m amazed we made it out alive. Eventually, we escaped the Highburys and arrived […]
The Apricots Were INSIDE the Cheese
We’re staying at Cumberland House, which, like all buildings with proper names, is delightful. Well, perhaps not all buildings with proper names. I once lived in a Theodore on 15th Street beneath a bachelor whose favorite drunken pastime was the 3am rearrangement of furniture. I still recall the sight of the bloody tissue he left […]