“The Tournament”

A lot is happening in London this week. Saturday afternoon we visited the grounds and toured the Marlborough House, headquarters of the Commonwealth, as a part of “Open House London”, an annual event which provides the opportunity to visit and view buildings that are normally restricted to the public. The House’s interior reminded me of our castle tour in the Loire Valley. The rooms are styled in a similar fashion with gold wall fixtures, dusty tapestries depicting countryside hunts, urns sitting on fireplaces, and portraits of royalty wearing powdered wigs and fur stoles.

This afternoon we visited the centrepiece of “The London Design Festival”, Jaime H.’s “The Tournament”, an impressively larger-than-life chess board in Trafalgar Square. Needless to say, this experiment in design is more my style than the Marlborough House whose emphasis on maintaining tradition is philosophically antithetical to the design festival’s emphasis on experimentation. Members of the public have the opportunity to play chess against each other, moving the kings, queens, knights and pawns in one of the world’s most popular public spaces. In many ways, “The Tournament” turns the monarchical ideal on its head by allowing people with not necessarily any name, pedigree, connections, etc. to control a chess board of royalty in perhaps the most accessible public space in central London.

“Between the Covers” at The Women’s Library

I was recently introduced to The Women’s Library at London’s Metropolitan University where I viewed their current exhibit “Between the Covers: Women’s Magazines and their Readers.” Discourse around women’s issues and concerns in the Western world cannot be had without addressing the mainstream media’s influence on and portrayal of women. The exhibit provides a history of the women’s magazine industry in England, starting with late-17^th century periodicals that served as resources for women to extend their education. With the Industrial Revolution, these periodicals quickly deteriorated to magazines about fashion, food and domestic happiness. Some things never change! I was struck by how “Cosmopolitan” magazine is the most popular women’s magazine in the world, particularly in light of their cover girls and cover lines. Both seem endlessly recycled month to month; the only variations are in the model’s hair colour and the cover lines’ font. The magazine’s popularity would infer that “fun” and “fearless” are the two qualities most women aspire to, but the question remains how much of this ethos is marketed to shape women’s concerns and how much of it is a true reflection of real woman’s values.

J&J filming in Ldn

Last night we had dinner with J&J at Napket before capping the night off at Cecconi’s. Established patrons of art in Chicago, they are currently directing their energy at shooting a documentary film on A-A artists who were educated and/or spent some or all of their careers in Europe. Their project has taken them to Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris and now London before they finish off in Rome. It was great to see an old friend from uni and talk about the arts: the classical education of abstract artists, the intellectual implications of deviating from producing realist images versus abstract ones, and the disillusionment AAs harbored towards American culture post-WWII.

Birthday Tea Party

Yesterday afternoon we celebrated my birthday at The Terrace whose atrium and skylights overlook Piccadilly. We dined on a traditional English tea service (scones with jelly and clotted cream; cucumber, salmon and cheese cream finger sandwiches; brownies, strawberries, and other assorted sweets). To counter the detoxifying effects of the herbal teas, we ordered a bottle of champagne which lead to a fair share of silliness.

Snow Day in London

Just last Saturday, over afternoon tea at Le Meridien  Piccadilly, six expatriates accused locals of ignorance about what cold weather really feels like in bplaces like Canada, Boston and New York. Lo and behold, it snowed last night and all day today, a “once-in-a-lifetime” weather event. It is the first time I’ve seen snow here in my four winters living in London.

Vince in London

It’s always nice to see a familiar face from NYC. We had what is becoming our annual dinner with Vince who shared with us his insights and experiences as a new dad.

My brother in London

After presenting a paper at Oxford Uni last week, my bro spent a long weekend with me in London. Along with sightseeing (lunch at Borough Market, a walk along the South Bank, Soho, Chinatown, and the parks), he joined me for yoga and a family gathering with my in-laws and M’s extended family in Chalfont.

 

M’s Family Visits London

M’s family is visiting London after concluding a two-week cruise around Europe.  M gave them “the London walking tour” we’ve taken all our family and friends who have visited us in London, and tonight we ate at Sofra for Turkish food. They reported that they enjoyed visiting Lisbon and Sintra and found Italian food tastier than Spanish (sacrilege!).

Birthday Tea at the Wolseley

This afternoon I celebrated my “big birthday” English style with a proper tea at the Wolseley. Tea included English Breakfast, Darjeeling and the Wolseley Afternoon Blend accompanied with an assortment of finger sandwiches (cream cheese & cucumber, smoked salmon, ham & mustard), fruit scones with home-made jam and clotted cream, and a selection of pastries (coffee-chocolate layered cake, lemon-flavored madeleines, pistachio macaroons, and chocolate éclairs). Sweeter than the food was the company: four North American expats who couldn’t be less British what with their interests in travel, yoga and alternative medicine.

A Big Birthday

Tonight we celebrated a big birthday at Arbitus in Soho, one of our favorite restaurants in London. The summer menu is “beautiful” as the British would say: we had the duck salad with beans and pine nuts and the squid burger followed by a beefsteak and the baked salmon. For desert we ordered the cheesecake topped with strawberries. We tried to remember what we did for our first birthday celebration together. I remember meeting M for dinner at Baluchi’s the night after he turned twenty-five. It was a frigid winter evening in New York City, and I caught a cold from the cold air which swept through the restaurant every time a patron opened the door. Years later and in the middle of an un-seasonably hot July, it’s good to have M at my side to close another year and start a new one in the ultimate gift of life.