Anyway, eventually we made it downtown, and began the morning with a brief stroll along the foggy banks of the Thames. Like you do. Here's some proof:
The London Eye. It's watching.
Ben.Things to know about London tourism: the lines, excuse me, the ques are longer. The French certainly have the filter-the-tourists-through-the-joint process down to a refined science in comparison, not that I'm a tourist (ahem), but after about 40 minutes of patiently waiting to get into Westminster Abbey, what ho:
That's Westminster there on the right. Isn't she lovely?
Fab Portal
See? The detail makes me giddy.
Look at the guy with the cloak fourth from the right
on the bottom row. Amazing.
That's Westminster there on the right. Isn't she lovely?
Fab Portal
See? The detail makes me giddy.Look at the guy with the cloak fourth from the right
on the bottom row. Amazing.
Another drastic difference between England and France? They don't let you take pictures inside of anything in England, whereas in France you can take photos during mass if you want to. (And if you want me to elbow you in the lip.) But I guess I got to enjoy the place with my own eyes instead of through a cheap digital camera lens. I had that going for me.
The first time I heard about Westminster abbey was in Mrs. Judd's Brit Lit class in the 11th grade. Any of you out there fortunate enough to have taken a class with the Judinator know that this in itself makes the place noteworthy. Pretty much every English monarch was buried there, which was unfortunately overwhelming as with the crowds and lack of time at our disposal, I was forced to shuffle by Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Elizabeth I, etc without proper veneration. Again, it never ceases to bother me that I have to run past and tag places and monuments I've lived and breathed at heart for some time now--like a mere tourist--and get picked on for my accent by the guy handing out audio guides in the process. I really just want to shout at the crowd all the time. "Dude! Du-ude! Edward I! Don't you guys understand just how truly badass he was? Blimey, slow down!"
Okay, yeah, maybe I should be a history teacher. Plus I would get to shout "blimey" at the youth of America.
Other high points included the Lady Chapel of Henry VII, another total badass. I stole this picture from online because you just have to see it:
It's the ceiling that does it. It's not just that it's beautiful, though that's certainly true. It's that mankind started by living in caves, trees, holes in the ground, etc. Then he had a fit of inspiration, and egad, he starts building structures. First a million years of hovels and shacks that topple in the wind. Until one day aliens land and teach him advanced technology so he can build the Parthenon. Thanks guys, now we're in business, don't forget to write.
But of course then someone crashes Hominem_Servire, the supercomputer, so man forgets everything and is forced to rebuild the hovels, then the shacks, and finally some wooden structures that catch fire every other tuesday. And then finally, tentatively, because this time he has only his divinely inspired self, no extraterrestrial aid, he takes a risk and starts stacking stones. Then he is crushed underneath them. The day after the funeral his neighbor, who thinks he knows what went wrong, gives it a shot. He, too, is crushed in the debris. Finally the neighbor's wife, fearing for the wellbeing of the rest of the men in town, shows them how it's done. Rocks are a hit. First barrel vaults, because mankind remembers vaguely the fine curved arches of his ancestors. Then one day an apprentice gets cheeky and Voila, pointed arches.
Now mankind is in business. Encouraged by favorable laws of physics, each builder struggles to build the tallest structure with the thinnest walls without having it fall over, kind of like Jenga. Stretching himself higher and higher, l'homme occidental becomes obsessed with making the walls paper thin. And to keep his stone structures standing, the vaulting follows him. First 4, then 6, then more in the aisles, the ambulatory, the nave. More and more the arches delicately balance and support by this point not walls, but glass, and are themselves supported from the outside by elegant flying buttresses. It's a beautiful geometric puzzle, way better than the ratty old Parthenon.
But now there's no more need to duplicate the vaulting, there are no more ways to push the strengths of the pointed arch it seems, but the elegant lines on the ceiling have grown on us. So one day a Romantic mason decides to enhance the ceiling with some delicate tracery. First an arch develops a tuft of decoration, like a well-fertilized climbing tomato vine. Fifty years later another building turns the tomatoes into ivy, which continues to climb. But in England, the place that hasn't forgotten the elegant tracing patters of both its Celtic and it's Germanic ancestors, it comes natural. They take the hanging gardens to the next level, until Henry VII has his chapel built in the 1503, by which time the ceiling has grown like a scene in Jumanji until it resembles Fangorn Forest.
From rocks piled on top of one another, to this. And when I see "this", I see it still moving, still climbing. Methinks. Even so, what else could mankind hope to build? Stucco? I guess the point of the story is that I have ceiling envy. Come on guys, we have the technology: every single ceiling should look like this.
Ug... that rant was exhausting. Will continue tomorrow...
The first time I heard about Westminster abbey was in Mrs. Judd's Brit Lit class in the 11th grade. Any of you out there fortunate enough to have taken a class with the Judinator know that this in itself makes the place noteworthy. Pretty much every English monarch was buried there, which was unfortunately overwhelming as with the crowds and lack of time at our disposal, I was forced to shuffle by Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Elizabeth I, etc without proper veneration. Again, it never ceases to bother me that I have to run past and tag places and monuments I've lived and breathed at heart for some time now--like a mere tourist--and get picked on for my accent by the guy handing out audio guides in the process. I really just want to shout at the crowd all the time. "Dude! Du-ude! Edward I! Don't you guys understand just how truly badass he was? Blimey, slow down!"
Okay, yeah, maybe I should be a history teacher. Plus I would get to shout "blimey" at the youth of America.
Other high points included the Lady Chapel of Henry VII, another total badass. I stole this picture from online because you just have to see it:
It's the ceiling that does it. It's not just that it's beautiful, though that's certainly true. It's that mankind started by living in caves, trees, holes in the ground, etc. Then he had a fit of inspiration, and egad, he starts building structures. First a million years of hovels and shacks that topple in the wind. Until one day aliens land and teach him advanced technology so he can build the Parthenon. Thanks guys, now we're in business, don't forget to write.
But of course then someone crashes Hominem_Servire, the supercomputer, so man forgets everything and is forced to rebuild the hovels, then the shacks, and finally some wooden structures that catch fire every other tuesday. And then finally, tentatively, because this time he has only his divinely inspired self, no extraterrestrial aid, he takes a risk and starts stacking stones. Then he is crushed underneath them. The day after the funeral his neighbor, who thinks he knows what went wrong, gives it a shot. He, too, is crushed in the debris. Finally the neighbor's wife, fearing for the wellbeing of the rest of the men in town, shows them how it's done. Rocks are a hit. First barrel vaults, because mankind remembers vaguely the fine curved arches of his ancestors. Then one day an apprentice gets cheeky and Voila, pointed arches.
Now mankind is in business. Encouraged by favorable laws of physics, each builder struggles to build the tallest structure with the thinnest walls without having it fall over, kind of like Jenga. Stretching himself higher and higher, l'homme occidental becomes obsessed with making the walls paper thin. And to keep his stone structures standing, the vaulting follows him. First 4, then 6, then more in the aisles, the ambulatory, the nave. More and more the arches delicately balance and support by this point not walls, but glass, and are themselves supported from the outside by elegant flying buttresses. It's a beautiful geometric puzzle, way better than the ratty old Parthenon.
But now there's no more need to duplicate the vaulting, there are no more ways to push the strengths of the pointed arch it seems, but the elegant lines on the ceiling have grown on us. So one day a Romantic mason decides to enhance the ceiling with some delicate tracery. First an arch develops a tuft of decoration, like a well-fertilized climbing tomato vine. Fifty years later another building turns the tomatoes into ivy, which continues to climb. But in England, the place that hasn't forgotten the elegant tracing patters of both its Celtic and it's Germanic ancestors, it comes natural. They take the hanging gardens to the next level, until Henry VII has his chapel built in the 1503, by which time the ceiling has grown like a scene in Jumanji until it resembles Fangorn Forest.
From rocks piled on top of one another, to this. And when I see "this", I see it still moving, still climbing. Methinks. Even so, what else could mankind hope to build? Stucco? I guess the point of the story is that I have ceiling envy. Come on guys, we have the technology: every single ceiling should look like this.
Ug... that rant was exhausting. Will continue tomorrow...
You were kidding when you said you embellished... the entire history of construction? Really? :P
ReplyDeleteI once had the Parthenon explained to me by a former Disney Imagineer... craziness.