Highgate Cemetery: Death and the Sublime

I made a wild run across London from Kew, where I was giving a lecture and tour, to Highgate for the special access tour to the west cemetery. Using overground trains, underground trains, underground tunnels, and overground paths, it took an hour and twenty minutes to cross The City. The tours of the West Cemetery were booked solid, and this was the first available when I booked it a month ago.  The planning, the running, the train platform hunting, the navigation of the housing complex interior paths up Swain's Lane, all were worth it for such an immersion in the Victorian Cult of Death.

Here is the "Heaven's Gate" through which one enters Highgate West.  This area is restricted because of the fragile nature of the tombs and the managed jungle of the environment.  They opened it to the public in the 1970's, but the vandalism was rampant (!?), so it became closed to the public except for special tours, on which the guides are vigilant for bad behavior of the participants.






Highgate was begun in 1839 to address the problem of not enough grave space in London as the population doubled.  The funerary sculpture is exquisite, and the cultural practices are fascinating.
There were angels, escorting the dead to heaven:

And angels sleeping with the dead:

The entire place feels excessive, but the crowning glory in the Egyptian Tombs.  Here is the opulent entrance.  Evidently it was quite brightly painted 180 years ago, but now it is a somber grey. 

Really, the jungle growing up around it adds to the mysteriousness of the location.  Inside the Egyptian Tombs are inhabitants in coffins in the hallway up to the central area.

Inside there are more crypts in a circle with an enormous Cedar of Lebannon on top of it. The doors are decorated with upside down torches that show the inhabitants no longer have need of light. There are also tombs along the curving interior section with increasing overgrowth adding to the feeling of genteel decay and riotous nature.

The light on this day was cloudy but bright, which makes the photos almost naturally sepia toned. While walking through the cemetery, the guide told us much about the people coming for picnics with the dead in Victorian times, and how people still come with a bottle of wine to sit and chat with the dearly departed.  

There are still quite well known people interred in the cemetery.  For example, the famous bare knuckle fighter, Thomas Sayers, is interred here with a memorial to his beloved dog, Lion. The anecdote is that the first carriage in the cortege contained the mortal remains of Mr. Sayers, the second carriage had Lion in it, dressed in a black crepe ruff, and in the third carriage came Mrs. Sayers.  

Other famous resting places include Mr. Karl Marx, upon whose tomb two candles burned, and Mr. Douglas Adams, upon whose grave is a pencil cup where people pay their respects by leaving a pen or pencil.

Both East and West Highgate are sublime in the technical sense of being beyond the scope of normal rational perception. the light was dispersed so the green was vivid and the grey glowed.  There are graves upon graves and tombstones and monuments tumbled together as far the eye can see into the thick woods.  There are angels, crosses, plinths, gothic arches, more angels, more celtic crosses, all jammed in together. Many are covered  with ivy, some are tumbled down. Some tombstones have skewed off their boxes and the holes in the earth gape black.  There are so many names! and so many lost names. 

Most of the graves seem to be forgotten, but some are well tended.  There are little paths that wind through the jungle-like woods. It would seem that there are also "quiet graves". These are plots that are not spoken of since the person memorialized does not want tourist visitors or pilgrims.  Douglas Adams clearly does not mind: he is right in front in the East Cemetery.  

I highly recommend a visit to the East Cemetery, which is always open to the public. It is worth the special tour of the West Cemetery, but go to the Highgate Website and reserve a place well before your visit. Plan at least three or four hours to really grok the place.  Bring a picnic. 

Shakespeariffic

Due to a massive cancellation on the part of another program, we were offered the opportunity to go to Stratford Upon Avon and RSC production of Cymbeline.  Not only that, but it was a beautiful sunny day, the only one in the week.  Some in our group were burnt, but all were warmed...and then the sun went down and we all froze on the walk back to our bus.  Speaking of the coach, it was a double decker, about the size of a small apartment building.  It swayed like a ship under sail as the driver careened around the 200 roundabouts between Grantham and Stratford.  

In Stratford, I visited Ann Hathaway's cottage where she lived until she married Shakespeare and moved into town.  There is a nice dedicated footpath to the cottage from town which makes a 20 minute walk that is quite pleasant. The cottage has been restored to lovely tourist quality, but a little imagination allows the visitor to see how rough it was to live there 400 years ago.  

This beautiful garden was the sheep yard for the family farm.  In the early years of the house, there were no chimneys, so one can imagine how smokey it was.  

From the Hathaway house, I followed Anne's path to Shakespeare's family home in town where she moved after she got married.  The family house is called The Birthplace,  but Shakespeare lived there with Anne and everybody else until he bought The New Place; no, really, that is what it's called.  Aside from the huge flocks of French school students, it was quite authentic inside, all dark and cramped.  

 The New Place was evidently really ritzy, in comparison, or so the brochure says.  It is currently closed for renovation, but I stood outside the garden and listened to the workmen discuss the Brexit.  Their principle observation is, "Well, England is an island nation, innit?"

Here is the front of the New Place.  I am guessing that it is ritzier because it has more and bigger windows.  So then I continued to follow Anne's path to the family church, Trinity Church, where both Anne and Bill were buried.  It is a nice Gothic example of churchiness. The plaque that you see on the lower left indicated Bill's grave, but Anne is right next to him.

Even more interesting is the fact that this church has four, count them four, Green Man faces!  They were probably not destroyed because they are gilded.

Finally, we ended the day at the Royal Shakespeare Theater for a production of Cymbeline, a pretty silly example of Shakespeare's work, but the actors were excellent, and costumes were bizarre.  Here is the set.

The funniest part of the play was where the Britons and the Romans have a parley, and the Britons serve the Roman legionnaires chocolate digestive biscuits and tea.  I'm not sure the actors were supposed to eat their biscuits, but one guy seemed to really enjoy his biscuit.  

Then we got back on out rolling apartment complex and sailed back to Grantham. Now, I know that the highways around Cincinnati always have traffic on them, but the motorways back to Grantham were deserted. Each roundabout was like being in one of the tea cup rides at the amusement park.  

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Our Rock Star Students

The students on this trip are a great group.  Not only are they photogenic, but they are all interesting and pleasant people!  We have liberal arts majors, engineers, radiologic technologists, psychology majors, and more.  It is great to have such a varied and friendly group.

Settling In at Harlaxton

Here we are at Harlaxton. Debbie and I are living in a little flat at the back of the manor which is really quite cozy. It is really funny. It is a veritable warren of hallways to get to the very back.







Here is the stairway path to our den.

Today we talked about what the Gothic is in terms of literature, architecture, art, and historical identity. We also discussed the contrast of the merely beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime. Then we had a field trip to view them all!  We looked a the "beautiful" English countryside. When we added a lonely twisted tree in the midst of a field, we get the picturesque.  But when we witnessed an endless field of bluebells, illuminated by the sun, stretching infinitely into the deep woods, we witnessed the sublime.

Truly, gentle reader, the photo cannot truly communicate the awe inspiring quality of these little flowers.

Packing as a meditation

Here is my "baggage".
Could I go with just a passport, a phone, and a wallet? One day...

 I have enough material to have a literature class, tour sites, paint in watercolors, do yoga, do photography, journal, dress appropriately, stay dry, keep warm, stay cool, hike on hills, fly on airplanes and take trains.

Getting Ready to Go and Remembering Being Gone

Ten years ago, I wrote a little poem about adventuring when I was a young lass in my 40s. That seems so young now...Anyway, here is my little poem from ten years ago:

We might hope someone else has the answer.
Some other place might be better.
It will all turn out.
Well, this is it.
Right now.
No one else has the answer.
No other place might be better.
It has already turned out.
It is the adventure itself that counts,
not the hoped for consequences.

The adventure right now is all about piles of paper. I won't have any room for clothing or my paint set what with all the itineraries, vouchers, passport copies, letters of introduction, inventories, syllabi, schedules, tickets, articles, and other such officialdom. But the interesting part of extended adventure of this kind is that once the marble block of hoped for consequences has been planned and delivered, which would be the aforementioned paper piles, then we get to sculpt our actual journey out of that marble block, and we won't know what it is until it's done. 

Choosing clothing for inconspicuous travel

For me, it always comes down to shoes: comfortable but not clunky.  It's a careful balance. I like the Ariat Paddock boots because they support the ankle, are waterproof, and look kind of like shoes. They are rather like a light pickup truck, right? They can do the work of a truck, but they ride like a car.  Anyway, I'm currently looking for tiny ballet flats that will fit in a tiny amount of space so I don't have to wear boots *all* the time.

Here is a study abroad group. We all decided that jeans and a t-shirt was the most effective international costume.

Everything else has to dry quickly for easy laundry on the go, but I choose things that are dark colors. The huge deal my colleagues and I discussed last year, as Americans traveling abroad, was the width of pant legs.  Fashion has gone skinny again, after a brief boot-cut phase, and one of my colleagues was aghast to draw stares at her unfashionably wide legged pants. She said she ran right out and bought some straight legged pants because she felt like she just stuck out in a crowd. This may have been personal hyperbole and insecurity, but I saw her point. I have straight legged pants for this trip, not those wide trousers of yesteryear.  But I have to say, that I took a dance class with a friend in Munich, and my wide legged trousers were perfect for that traditional dance class. Hah!

I think overtly patriotic dress draws stares, and alcohol oriented t-shirts might not send the "I'm blending in" message.  I read a lot of websites about leggings, and the general message was tasteful dress is leggings with a tunic that comes to the thigh.  Rick Steves says, "Wear a scarf!", and I agree.  That is a fashion element I have seen everywhere. Baseball caps seem to be more sports oriented and not daily wear in many countries, but I'm ready to be wrong about that upon further observational research.

I think what really stands out is a group that talks really loudly, hogs the sidewalk, and is generally oblivious to others.  I think this is an international issue from the Grand Canyon to the Charles Bridge. 

Goth or not?

I spent the day at Spring Grove Cemetery, on a sunny blustery day, taking photos of local Gothic revival and classical revival statuary to be ready to talk about the Gothic at our next class meeting.  I am also following a MOOC from the University of Stirling about the Gothic, which is very interesting. A principal concept of the Gothic sensibility is the contrast of terror vs. horror. Terror is sublime fear, uncertainty, the grip of the unknown. In contrast, is horror where the veil is lifted, the monster is shown, and the unknown becomes known. Stephen King adds another, baser level: the gross out.  One person in the MOOC mentioned that that terror is a figment of the mind whereas horror is where you get to see the brains.  Gothic sensibility is about sublime terror, not horror or gross-out.  Those last two are other genres.




Here is my photo that shows the most gothic sensibility of my day in Spring Grove. Here the moss is beginning the creep up the walls of the crypt. Dead leaves cluster at the door that is chained, but slightly ajar.  Was someone trying to get in or was something trying to leave? Yes. I creeped myself out.

In a more subtle sense, I really liked this one for its capture of the idea of Gothic as romantic decay. This concept is sometimes called "dark romanticism".  Here is a statue of a woman in deep contemplation with the marble, a symbol of purity, molding on the interior and being weathered away on the exterior.  That the mold is black, not green, seems to make the decay even creepier. 

Getting Ready for SBSA 2016

Who loves her Timbuk2 courier bag? I do!

I'm very excited about getting ready for SBSA 2016. I have done this a few times, so I have my bags all ready: I carry two Timbuk2 bags, one medium and one small.  That seems to be enough for what I carry.  I don't like to carry a lot of bags, and I'm okay with doing a little laundry every night.  I have my "zip dry" shirts from Travel Smith, and I have a nice "zip dry"suit from Eddie Bauer that is really comfortable. Oh, I also got a good pair of boots that are water proof, comfortable, and don't look too bad from Ariat.  Let's see...what else...passport, ID: check.  I need to call the bank and tell them I will be using my credit card abroad.  I need to see if I will be extending my stay, and I need to decide what I will do if I stay a bit.
And then there is all the class stuff I need to put together for everybody!

Nashville Breakfast

I am in Nashvile, TN, for the Quality Matters Conference. The breakfast room is full, and pop music blares from from two tall standing amplifier towers.  Two large screens advertise the software companies and products that one's institution can buy.  It is like academic NASCAR.

But wait, there's more.  There are sausage sandwiches, like at McDonalds, and there are little rolls with piles of vanilla and chocolate icing. It is popular.

Next to the "make your own cinnabon" there is a more healthy option of fruit. However, it might not be sweet enough, so there are six bottles of syrup you can pour on your fruit.

Sugar, fat, and pop music.

We are sitting at a table with people from Lubbock, TX.  One nice person was very friendly. She asked where we were from, and when she discovered we were from Blue Ash, she mentioned that she had not heard of Blue Ash. I said it was named for a kind of tree. "Oh," she said, quite cheerfully, "We know ash trees.  We call them trash trees. Nobody wants them. My husband just says we don't need those trees, so everybody just cuts them down."

Social commentary.

So, the lights just came up, but the music rocks on. It is time for our KeyNote Panel that will talk to us about Content, Design, and Delivery: the Past Present and Future of Distance Education.

Let me get another cinnamon bun with chocolate icing, tap my foot to the music, and settle my trashy self in for some lovely exhortation about how my distance learning experience can be a matter of high quality.

Heathrow in Another Light

Heathrow is globally known as one of the busiest, largest airports in the world.  Indeed, watching the airplanes land is like watching traffic in South Florida; it is a never ending, regular stream of traffic.  And such big traffic, too!  I came to Heathrow to see the students off back home, and it was a sad sundering  of the fellowship. It was bittersweet to see such emotion at parting.  Nick Smith noted, in his blog Nautodidact.wordpress.com that it is more like meiosis that just splitting apart because each one takes a bit of the other in the separation.  That is a sweet, if sticky, metaphor. These partings seem more like the eddies of a river where we swirl around together and then are swept onwards.

So after saying goodbye, I went to the Heathrow Ibis Hotel.  I love Ibis hotels because they offer nice little cubbies as rooms.  I find the small size comfortable and comforting.  From there I had the afternoon so I went to see what was in Heathrow aside from the behemothic airport, around which the entire area revolves.  I found Cranford Country Park!  Oh my heavenly starts, but who would know that there was a huge meadow, some orchards, forest paths, and hedges full of larks and thrushes.  

If you sit on a park bench in the right place, you can watch the jets flow into the airport. In between the planes, you can hear the birds singing.  There is also a medieval church, St. Dunstan's. I spent a good half hour reading the poignant gravestones ranging from 1800 to 2006. 

It was a delightful two hour walk in the woods.  In Heathrow!  

Last week in England

This week we are winding down, and the students have their final presentations tomorrow.  My students are creating their own definition of what Gothic is.  Molly actually said that she realized what cultural relativism really means after having been to so many countries.  She said its just that people do things differently, and it it's all okay.  Molly is the one  in the hoody.

Isn't study abroad great?  Another student, Sarah, comments that doing study abroad has allowed her to become more courageous.  She says it helped her come out of her shell and try new things she never thought she could do.  Isn't study abroad fantastic?  Sarah is the one with the wonderfully red hair. 

This week we had our final conferences with all the students asking them, "So, how has study abroad changed you?". Okay, so how has this trip changed me?  Interestingly enough, I have learned to have a lighter hand and a quieter mind.  I can more clearly see where people's fear comes from, and what effect that fear can have.  I feel like a wandering mendicant with my experiential begging bowl.  Some of the students complain that the novelty of the new cities and the manor house wears off too fast, but I feel like I have rediscovered the constant renewal of novelty in everyday life.  Here at Harlaxton, we have bacon and eggs every day for breakfast.  Everyday, I get my little saucer of bacon and egg,  and it is as divine each morning as it was the day before.  Oh delicious breakfast!  I walk through the halls of Harlaxton and smell the past in the walls, and it is so much fun every single time.  We went to Kew gardens and it was as deliriously beautiful as it was the first time.  

So as I get older, and more practiced in being in the moment, I find that I have more joy and patience.  I also think that being well rested, joyful, and patient leads to more compassion for the suffering of others.  I used to think it was my responsibility to take it away from them, but that's not nice.  It is better to be a sympathetic witness.  

City of stone and moor

Tt

We arrived in Edinburg in the glowing evening, but the next day, the heavens opened and the rain poured down in a blowing welcome to the North country.  

Above is the castle in the mist and rain.  It was divine!  I loved the stone city in the grey rain, the water making little rivers between the cobble stones and the wind making free with our umbrellas.  I have been to Edinburg several times, and I have never sprung for the cost of actually entering the castle.  But this time I was with a group who Attended Castles, so I went in.  The weather was foul and perfect for this eclectic pile of stone perched on an ancient volcano.

 In the evening while we dried off in our hostel, Debbie read the history of the benighted Rock from her guidebook.  The English took it, the Scots bravely took it back, then the English took it, but the Scots audaciously took it back.  Rinse and repeat.  We visited the Museum of War, but it talked about how the horses got shell shock, and I wept to think of the poor emotional horses being terrified out of their little horsey wits, so I had to go wait for everyone in the lobby.  Then in the next memorial for dead soldiers they did include two horses and a dog, so I was slightly mollified. War. 

I was cheered by our company:  see how cute we are?  

The next day I joyfully climbed Arthur's Tor in Holyrood Park.  It was a delightful to be in the grass above the Stone City.  Our group was congenial, the food was delicious (macaroni and chorizo at the Fiddler's Elbow), and the Edinburg Central Hostel was quite reasonable.  Oh, and I saw more UtiliKilts than regular tartan wool kilts.  Debbie and I agree that more men would wear kilts as it is a most attractive garment for any gentleman.  

We are in Harlaxton

We arrived at Harlaxton Manor last night.  The students have been prompt at the refectory, and it is lovely to have three hot meals a day at regular intervals.  It just as lovely to have someone else wash the dishes afterwards.  It is positively, deliriously wonderful.  And what makes it all the more wonderful, if that is possible, Debbie and I have been relegated to the Gregory Cottage since the faculty state rooms are full.  Oh, woe is us, and we rub our hands with glee.  No need for plush blue starred carpets and gilded ceilings for us. Give us a little cottage with a parlor, a kitchen with a kettle, a sea of daffodils, and we are happier than Wordsworth in Cumbria.  Here is our cottage door under the blooming dogwood trees: 

And then when we thought it could not get any better, we found the tub.  A deep, prop tub. A tub that a lady of a certain age recognizes as the truest way to appreciate the panacea that hot water can be.  

But it would not be the cottage of Shangrila if it did not have Digestive Biscuits. Ah, and I hear Debbie on the step, and look, here she comes in with an enormous bag of digestive biscuits, chocolate and plain. Oh, is life good? Resounding yes.  :-)

Happy Mothers Day to Priscilla

Hi Mom!  Happy day upon which we love you just as much as every other day, which is a lot, but we announce it to the world.  Rah, rah, you are wonderful and fabulous and it is because of your love  and support that I can do what I am up to today.  No, really, its true.  Even across the Atlantic ocean I can hear you snort and say that it is because of my own will to achieve, but, see, that's what I mean: you inspire that will and confidence and joie de vivre.  You, you, you, oh, wonderful mummy, you.  Yup.  I'm a big fan.

So in addition to loving my mother very much today, as usual, I also went with the Band of Young Scholars to the Prague Castle.  We saw the ever so grand St, Vitus Cathedral. Here is one of our lovely young scholars observing the sublimity. 

In the afternoon, we walked down through the town and had diner at u Fleku, a 15th century restaurant.  I had potato soup in which the herbs danced around on the palate and had a little flavor party.  There was also an ancient accordion player who played Beatles tunes and other schmaltzy favorites.  He wore a checked suit as loud as his accordion.  The serving of pork knuckles that one student received was positively medieval, in perfect keeping with the reputation of the restaurant.  

Lovely Crone with Claws

Kafka had problems with Prague, but a lot of other people did not, in fact, they really liked it.  I like it too.  It is more energetic if a bit grimmer.  This morning we went to the Kafka Museum and I think the students may have enjoyed it.  It is marvelously Informative about K's life, and it makes one much more sympathetic for the troubles he felt, real or imagined.  He was sensitive.  

Debbie and I argued about the panther at the end of The Hunger Artist.  She quoted Rilke a out how it was sad to see the panther caged, but I argued that K saw The Panther differently at the end of the story: it was a panther that was satisfied with his constriction because he got what he wanted.  K could not get what he wanted, like peace, quiet, and food that didn't hurt, but he keenly felt his limitations. He frequently mentions how it was hard to write because it was too noisy. Yes, yes, I say.  Thie constant noise is so distracting.  I feel so relaxed when I put in earplugs.  I feel so beaten about the head and shoulders by Muzak.  Debbie and I had a two Hour lunch at the Cafe Slavia, in which there was no music, only the low hum of conversation.  It was divinely civilized. 

On our walk home, we passed an institution that was labelled in Czech that we could not read, but it had a big red skull rotating and on top of it like some kind of strange macabre mobile.  It was actually funny because this is not the color of skulls and this is not what skulls do.  This is the essence of the Uncanny.  I enjoy the whimsy of this kind of uncanny.  However, there is the totally discombobulating uncanny.  As we walked through the Old Town Square, suddenly a woman shed her coat and posed in front of a lamppost.  A man, equally suddenly began photographing her with brisk intensity.  This unfolded so quickly because the woman was naked but for a little tiny corset.  It was so Not What Happens happening that it was utterly disorienting and only upon reflection did it become shocking.