I saw the new movie Knowledge, starring Nick Cage. (Note: there may be plot spoilers coming, so if you want to see the movie, stop reading.) On principle, I have a problem with apocalyptic movies. Armageddon (Bruce Willis) was good, at least in part because the threatened apocalypse did not come about. The Left Behind series of movies was problematic because there's just a generic problem with apocalypse movies, as there is with the "evolutionary" kind of science fiction (you know, when humanity transforms into something other, with concomitant millennial consequences). I think the issue is that in general, audiences identify and sympathize with the hero, and when the hero dies, it produces the tragic effect. However, when the whole of humanity is wiped out, it goes beyond tragedy, as sci-fi goes beyond romance when humanity changes beyond recognition.

I am, however, interested in the repackaging of religious themes in contemporary movies, and Knowledge had that in abundance--Left Behind meets Erich von Daniken meets Armageddon.

So, why am I intrigued, though not completely sold on, Knowledge, while dissing the Left Behind series? I don't really know, if one leaves out better CGI. I suspect that apocalypse is a problem because there's an end to all tension if everyone's dead. Even if a new Eden or millennial existence results for a few, there's something inconceivable about humanity, essentially as we know it, suddenly coming to a complete end (maybe more than 5 billion of the earth's 6 billion being wiped out in an instant, with maybe a few thousand saved? There's a Schindler's List for you). Plus, for Left Behind, if one reads biblical prophecy, there's a millennial existence and Heaven at the end. John struggled to describe it, and such an existence would almost certainly be impossible to describe adequately by an earth-bound human. Literature is based on tension and conflict, so it's not clear where that goes.

Charles Darwin at the Cambridge University Library

I just went to see the exhibit of manuscripts, letters, and specimens from the voyage of the Beagle, a trip of almost 5 years (1831-36) from which Charles Darwin derived the data that would result in the theory of evolution 20 years later. One tends to think of theorizers as people who sit in laboratories or libraries and write, but it's clear that Darwin used what the exhibit called his "gap year" to exhaustively examine the botany, biology and geology of especially South America, but also the Pacific. He managed to understand the importance of the ecosystem as environment.

When one considers the tensions arising from the theory of evolution through natural selection, it's interesting to think that it stands on such a wealth of observation, maybe the most comprehensive in the history of biology. And to see family letters, drawings, and specimens, as well as travel diaries, gives a sense of the richness of this episode in Darwin's life (as well as a sense of richness and complexity for the viewer of the exhibit). It's especially interesting that he almost didn't go; his father, a doctor, was against the idea at first. Darwin himself also saw it as a large and perhaps fruitless investment of time.

Merry Wives of Windsor

Sorry no pictures, but we did see the Merry Wives of Windsor last night. This was my first night of garden Shakespeare this year, because of the nasty way the weather has of downpouring at right about the start of the shows (7:30 p.m.). One student, Amanda Rowe, met us in Kings College garden, which I had never been in before.

The college gardens are one of those hidden traditions that make Cambridge colleges different than those of the U.S. Normally, these gardens are closed to non-college members. When gardens are opened, they evidence the British genius with this art form--lush, manicured lawns, bordered by a profusion of colorful flowers and manicured woodland. As a further surprise, one of the Kings buildings that borders the garden was a rather daring modern block of rooms, with plenty of glass block and metal railings. One can't even see this building from any public thoroughfare. Actually, in a correction, one can see the back of this building from a public road, but the back is completely conventional.

Anyhow, the production was excellent. In many ways, it's Shakespeare as it should be seen--outside, with minimal props and an exuberant cast that is also doing other productions of other Shakespeare plays at the same time. Now Merry Wives is extremely topical--after the success of Henry IV parts 1 and 2, Elizabeth commanded another play with Falstaff in it. Here are the topical bits: it's set in Windsor, the site of one of Elizabeth's palaces, and it's placed in the present time (that is, Elizabethan present time). It's city comedy, in that it deals with social relationships and sexual mores of smart, "sophisticated," urban folks. Absolutely a puff piece, with Falstaff taking center stage, and at least two characters from the Henry IV sequence appearing (Mistress Quickly, Justice Shallow, and maybe the innkeeper, though I'm not sure about this last).

The playing was right where it should be: lots of burlesque, overacting, making a big point of jokes and puns, and so on. Again, the acting fitted the structure and content of the play.

A final word about Shakespeare as he "should" be seen--I just mean that in an "historically authentic" kind of way. We'll never be able to experience what an Elizabethan audience did in the way they did (we have too much subsequent media history, for one thing), but it's nice to see how it's done with many of the same strictures as the 1590's--few props, no real scenery, good costumes, a small acting company, gender bending. Of course, no spotlights in Shakespeare (we had those), and the gender-bending was all the other way, with women taking some of the men's roles, as opposed to the other way around.

The days dwindle down . . .

I almost forgot--I went to the Pepys Library in Magdalene College yesterday. I've been in Magdalene's first court before, and I think I found out where C.S. Lewis's rooms were there, but I've forgotten. Anyhow, it turns out that Pepys was a naval administrator during the Restoration, and his collection includes Hakluyt (both the Principal Navigations (2nd ed.) and the Divers Voyages), as well as Purchas's Pilgrimage and Pilgrimes. But, perhaps more importantly, the library has a manuscript book (illustrated) about the shipwright's art from the mid-16th century. I note that the National Maritime Museum claims not to have any real sense of ship plans from before the mid 1600's, so I wonder if the manuscript contains any important illustrations. If I could get my students into that library, however, we'd have a rich printed manuscript and printed book trove there. I also didn't check to see if Pepys had a de Bry of some type. I'd better look at the catalog.

Last night, the farewell dinner and reception, in the pouring rain. We ended up in the Old Combination Room for the reception before dinner, and in the Senior Combination Room for the dinner itself. The students have been great this year, and the faculty members the most involved in my experience. We just had a couple of issues that just came up last night: one student managed to lose her keys down a grate in the sidewalk, and confronted the porter in tears about it (thinking that she'd have to pay a lot of money to replace it). However, the grate she lost the keys down was actually college property, so the next morning we had one of the maintenance men get it out.

Tonight, The Merry Wives of Windsor, if the weather holds. I don't think I've ever seen a rainier summer here.

The Cotswolds and Ancient Books

Fighting a cold took up much of my weekend. We did, however, get out to the Cotswolds on Sunday, with Roots Tours out of Cambridge (consider this a true plug for the company). These 14-person van tours get one into out-of-the-way places of scenic beauty. The Cotswolds are, in fact, a true beauty spot, with the added advantage of being convenient to London and Oxford. Though the hills rise only about 3000 feet above sea level, the effect is still startling when one sees signs for 17 percent grades on paved roads. Even so, we saw many touring bicyclists on our route.

Trout streams, old mills (above), Upper and Lower Slaughter (which is actually derived from the term "Sloe Tree," not the term for butchery), the highest point in the Cottswolds, and the spa town of Cheltenham. It was a great day.
























Yesterday, we had the annual chance to get our hands on (literally) items from Saint Catharine's collection of rare books. My personal favorite is a 1625 copy of Samuel Purchas's Pilgrimes, a collection of travel narratives. But I also like the Ptolemaic atlas from 1511 and the Mercator atlas from 1623 (yes, I know he was dead by then, but I mean his maps). This is always a highlight of Cambridge, and a unique opportunity that Paul Hartle has arranged for us. There's no other library or museum in the U.S. or U.K. where we could do the same.

Liverpool

Today (Saturday) is a quiet day. After coming down with the sniffles that the students had come down with earlier in the program, Chris and I have elected to keep quiet until tomorrow, when we take a trip to the Cotswolds with Roots Travel. It's amazing to think that we have reached the last week of the program. It is even more amazing to think back on the "non-summer" that we have experienced here, as opposed to the record-breaking warmth and dryness of Phoenix and other parts of the West. But I look out of my window here at the cloudy sky and the saturated colors of the garden.

We had great luck, however, in one of the longest trips that the program has ever taken, to Liverpool, to the Museum of Slavery on Albert Dock. This visit has relevance both to Eddie Mallot's class on post-colonial Shakespeare, and to my Early Modern exploration class, which treats the beginnings of English involvement in the African slave trade of the Portuguese and Spanish with America.



This is our guide, Stephen, with Professor Mallot. We had arrived maybe a half hour later than we'd intended to, having driven through the pouring rain and having had one maintenance stop. This caused some lack of focus, as students rushed to get a bite for lunch during our tour. The museum is small enough that we needed to split our group into two smaller units, one led by Stephen and one led by another guide.

But there is, of course, an irony in Liverpool; besides being the largest slavery port in England by a number of measures, it is also the birthplace of the Beatles. The Beatles Experience Museum, which Chris and I had a chance to tour, was in its own way very culturally informative. For the most part, the exhibits were both interesting and accurate. The complex nature of the Beatles' early career, their beginning popularity in Germany, and their roots in the Mersey folk music, Skiffle, were well explained.

Their years of popularity corresponded with our grammar school and teen years, so some of the history prompted personal memories and cultural comparisons between British Beatlemania and American. Things got a bit poignant and political at the end, however, with commemorative exhibits of the last years of, especially, John Lennon and George Harrison. Among one of the interesting political things was the way both Paul's first wife and Heather Mills had been "disappeared" from his biography. Only Linda remains. By the way, who was the "5th Beatle"? I don't know, since they changed personnel during their time as the Quarrymen, were associated with Brian Epstein as a manager, and changed a drummer before Ringo. So--6 Beatles? 7? I don't know.

Down the dock from the museum and free if one went to the museum was the Fab 4-D Beatles Show, a "Smellovision" extravaganza, by which I mean, we got 3-D glasses, the chairs tilted, shook and dropped with the bus ride, and when the bus became a yellow submarine, water was sprayed on us. Actually, it was fun. In addition to the show, John Lennon's first wife and his son Julian had put up an alternative exhibit of his life to support their charitable endeavors. This exhibit idealized Lennon less than the Beatles Experience museum, and gave the experience of the time from an alternative point of view.

We finished the day with a walking tour to The Cavern, a rebuild of one of the early clubs in which the Beatles (and Quarrymen--go see the museum) played. There were lots of tourists young and old, there for the experience, and we got one of those serendipities--a cover duo playing Beatles tunes. Since it was a pub, some of the audience had lost their inhibitions (and their ear for pitch), and there was an enthusiastic sing-along. I do have video of the students singing along, but haven't included it here, for privacy reasons. But here is Chris at The Cavern (by the way, her favorite Beatle was Paul. I think that's supposed to mean something.).