English Serendipity

In my video blog, I mentioned two things, that I'd gone to Oxford, and that I'd seen the Codex Mendoza (above). I pointed to both this, and a picture of Shakespeare that I'd seen exhibited last year, as examples of serendipity--useful blind luck of the find.

Anyhow, I'm interested in the Codex Mendoza because sometime around 1587, Richard Hakluyt, my research subject, who was working in France at the time (spying for Sir Francis Walsingham?) received this manuscript from Andre Thevet, the Geographer Royal of France at the time. Interestingly, around this time, Thevet and Hakluyt may or may not have had a falling out, because Thevet accused Hakluyt and Martin Basanier of essentially stealing a narrative about a French colony in Florida from him. But they must have worked it out. The Codex Mendoza is an important Aztec manuscript: in fact, if you could see the writing on the illustration on the left page, it's Aztec spoken language in Roman characters at the top, the Aztec ideogram in the middle, and Spanish on the bottom. But Hakluyt couldn't get anyone to engrave the illustrations, so he didn't print it before his death in 1616. It came to his self-appointed literary heir, Samuel Purchas, with the rest of Hakluyt's manuscripts upon his death, and Purchas printed it in his collection Purchas his Pilgrimes. From there, the manuscript came into the possession of Robert Selden.

So imagine my surprise, when on just an informal visit to the Bodleian Library exhibit room with no idea that it was there, I see the codex on display in an exhibit of the donation of Robert Selden, an exhibit which was to close on the next day. One doesn't always get that kind of luck.

That was just like my luck with the Shakespeare portrait last year, when in walking around Stratford, I came to the mini-exhibit of this portrait and its provenance (narrative of transmission). The portrait had just been in the news at that time, and I got to see it in detail. I wasn't supposed to take pictures in either case, as it turns out, but I did. It's better to apologize than to ask for permission beforehand.

RSC As You Like It 2010

The RSC Trailer

Before you read the rest of this, take a look at the RSC's trailer for this production (click on the link above). Keep in mind that this is one of Shakespeare's comedies, in fact from what's sometimes called his "golden period," the sunniest ones he ever wrote.

I hate to break it to them, but it still turns out a comedy, even when you skin a dead rabbit on stage. Even when you put Touchstone into a straitjacket and crazyman pants. Even when songs that generally would be sung by Amiens and Touchstone are put into the mouth of noir-Jethro Tull costumed Jaques. Even when you make "The Lusty Horn" song into a nightmare sequence for Celia.

I mean, there are anxieties in this play, chief among them the Freudian (note anachronism) male anxiety about cuckolding, which the intelligence and female friendship of Celia and Rosalind do nothing to allay in the comic version. But nihilistic anxieties of the type that the changed stage business attempts aren't really convincing.

The structure and language are too strong to push against, even though the play with its "humorous" (in the Early Modern Renaissance sense of character determination) elements suggests a kind of dispositional determinism that gets subverted by the "conversion" plot. In fact, this interplay produces a kind of happy chaos in which anything can happen, and in which characters end up overcoming their dispositions.

This is also my favorite script of a play, in pretty much a tie with Midsummer Night's Dream. I'd forgotten just how witty it is when played by stage experts. So, the language is too exuberant to be tamed to nihilism as well. It's free play instead.

But different takes are always enjoyable, and the attempt to heighten the negative emotional tension between Celia and Rosalind actually worked to underline some elements that generally go unnoticed in the play when worked as a comedy (like the adjudication scene at the beginning of MSND; that verdict could be pretty serious for Hermia).

So, two thumbs up (as opposed to index and middle finger up, palm facing the gesturer. It's a British thing.).

Video Blog for July 27, 2010

Video Blog for July 27, 2010

I'll write more later on several topics that I bring up in this video blog. For now, I need to teach!

Wicken Fen Odyssey (Redux)

Quick Note: Apparently I didn't write about our little odyssey last year, up the Southeast bank of the River Cam. But we did it. I promise.

For at least two years now, Chris has had a fixation with one of the last remaining wild fens (marshes) in the vicinity of Cambridge, Wicken Fen. Maybe it's because the visitor's center is called the Thorpe Visitor's Center (her maiden name). Cambridge lies at the edge of the Fens, which used to reach north to to King's Lynn from around Cambridge (http://www.cfsa.co.uk/denver_complexintroduction.htm). Wicken Fen is toward Ely, one of the major historic towns in the fens, and the year before last, Chris and I had bicycled to and from Ely. Of course, it's a 15 minute trip by train.

So now, we've been intrigued by the trails and towpaths that parallel the River Cam up to Wicken Fen. Allegedly, they are part of two major routes of the National Cycle Network, and a route from Cambridge to Newmarket (which Chris also wants to visit because of the horses) is also supposed to exist (http://www.cycle-route.com/routes/Cambridge_to_Newmarket-Cycle-Route-68.html).

Last year, we attempted Wicken Fen by the bike path leading out of Cambridge on the Northwest side of the river. Somewhere around Waterbeach last year, we switched sides of the river from northwest to southeast bank. They really should put out a mountain biking recommendation for that side of the river. With wide knobbys, it would be decent (outside of lifting the bikes over stiles), but with street tourers, not so much (see my post last year about it).

Well, this year, we decided to stay on the Northwest side, using Long Drove to get up to where the path supposedly begins in earnest again just on the other side of the river from Upware. Of course, there's no bridge there, so one would theoretically have to make about a 3-mile loop anyway, to get back down to Wicken Fen (then, again theoretically, on to Burwell, a scenic, interesting town, and on to Newmarket).

Alas, it was not to be. Another mountain bike recommendation is needed here, starting at the end of Long Drove. Again, city bikes, and this time we stood opposite a pub in Upware where we had had a meal last year. But we couldn't get there, nor could we face another mile and a half of jolting on what is in actuality a rough footpath. The panorama above commemorates the farthest point north that we got. That's Upware across there with those narrow boats. Sounded like a good party.

Instead, we turned back to Waterbeach, and to a nice pub there. The weather was partly cloudy and the wind flowed over the flat fenland. And so, the odyssey (and jinx) continues.

Love's Labours Lost and GCU Videos

I thought that I'd embed my GCU video blog posts in this site, for those of you who don't have, or want to have, Facebook accounts. I'll start with the July 5 one, go on to the July 11 one and finish with the one I did yesterday. After this, I'll just embed each video blog as I do it.

Now, to Love's Labours Lost: We saw the production at one of the Downing College interior courts, east of St. Catharine's. It was a bit hard to get to, as we had to go on a busy road next to Parker's Piece to find the college entrance. There happens to be bicycle parking well into the college itself, so we walked our bikes (which we'd just rented that morning) to the area, locked them, and went into the garden with our light supper of sushi. We'd spotted a bento box Japanese restaurant earlier in the week and though that a bento box apiece would be a great way to have dinner at garden Shakespeare. But bento boxes are only for lunch. . . . . So, in a compromise, we got sushi to take away: shrimp nigiri, cucumber roll, and cucumber and crab. Gotta love the wasabi and ginger (Jim only).

The production itself ended up being one of the better I've seen at Cambridge. As usual, the players interacted often with the audience, and as usual, made use of the natural features (in this case some intervening bushes and trees) to enhance the performance's visual values. I'm constantly amazed by how much can be done with very few props. The company numbered about 12 people, so several parts were doubled.

The players themselves do play to members of the audience; in this case, one of the male comic leads played to a pretty girl sitting in the front on the grass with her boyfriend. Another feature of these productions is the fact that the audience members bring beverages, which the actors sometimes share. In this production, several of the actors ventured into the audience for alcohol, and worked their responses to the drinks into the production.

LLL is an interesting early comedy of Shakespeare's; as its name implies, it doesn't end in marriage as most of his comedies do. This can lead to an interesting dilemma for actors and directors, in that the humor needs to be kept going, but the ending does not resolve the conflict. These players were especially adept at working that ironic register in the production, while keeping the mood light. The Don Armando character, I think, hit just the right note (the rest of the audience apparently thought so too, since the cast got a good ovation at the end), but the Berowne character ended up being a little too, let's call it "precious," since he's one of the main characters who is supposed to be hopelessly in love with the French ladies.

Outside playing is interesting in another way in Britain--one never knows when it will rain. The performance started out under partly cloudy skies, and remained so until the end. But we did get lightly rained on several times during the performance (lucky Chris and I had brought our rain jackets). The upside to this was about act three, when the players were playing under an evening rainbow, which remained in the sky for at least 15 minutes.

As I say, an excellent production, well-received, then home on bicycles with generator lights, through the club-hopping crowds, under a spectacular fireworks show from the Shakespeare performance at King's College at about 10:15. One takes one's life in one's hands to ride at that time of night, but the fireworks were worth it, almost 4th of July level.

Students and I had a chance to go to the Parker Manuscript Library at Corpus Christi College today, thanks to the other professors, Asa Mittman and Albrecht Classen. Professor Classen showed several manuscripts of English and Irish pilgrimage narratives, including The Travels of Sir John Mandeville and The Voyage of Saint Brendan. We also had a chance to tour the exhibit and the main meeting room. Photography is prohibited there.

In the afternoon, Dr. Mittman took his class over to examine some medieval maps and bestiaries. He knew the librarian well, and explained that this is the best collection of medieval manuscripts in English in the world, in his opinion. I don't doubt it. The Parker Library has also digitized almost its entire manuscript collection, which can be seen at this link: http://parkerweb.stanford.edu/parker/actions/page.do?forward=home. Here's a picture of the Matthew Paris manuscript we saw above from that website. One can't go on using "a once-in-a-lifetime chance" when talking about this experience, but it can be unique for professors as well as students. Certainly it was a unique experience for me to hear an art historian talk about the beauty of these medieval manuscripts and the meanings and symbolism of the maps contained in them.

Mesa Canals 2: Eastern Canal

The SRP canal map calls this the last mile or so of the Eastern Canal. Supposedly, the distance between the place the EC crosses McKellips and where it joins the Southern Canal (the north endpoint of the map above) is 1.68 miles. From where the red route line starts at essentially Hermosa Vista and Gilbert Roads, is probably three-quarters of a mile, and unpaved. The northwest bank of the canal is blocked close to McDowell Road with an SRP complex of pumping stations and dams maybe 200 yards from the junction with the Southern Canal. The stretch, however, since it parallels the edge of the mesa for which Mesa is named, has excellent views of the McDowell and Goldfield Mountains, as well as Red Mountain. If one could follow this canal far enough, one could finally reach Granite Reef reservoir. In later posts, I'll point out the barriers on this canal between McDowell and Greenfield Roads, at which point the canal right-of-way becomes clear on the South bank all the way to Granite Reef.

This was the originating point of most of my searches for the location of the Lehi marker, and is also a good connector from the neighborhoods west of Gilbert Road in Mesa to the Lehi Road intersection north of McDowell. The two-mile stretch of Lehi Road north of McDowell is isolated enough to provide nice riding for either road or mountain bikes, though the neighborhoods are beginning to build up. However, there are still orange groves and a gravel operation that border the road at present.

First Week at Cambridge/London Excursion/Nate and Tana

This is my first try at putting video into my blog. Nate and Tana came to visit from Oxford this week, just after the first week of classes. They came with us to Henry IV, Part 1 at the London Globe Theater. It was great to see them again, after almost a year. They seem to be doing quite well, and are making the most of their time, it seems. Above is a bit of London before we went into the play. It's been both a smooth and a bittersweet start to the program, as we begin our last year as director couple.

We met Nate and Tana in London as we went into the National Observatory for a special presentation of Early Modern maps; they'd trained in from Oxford, and had been dropped about half a mile from the Observatory (and our bus). After the presentation at the National Observatory, we were dropped off at the Embankment, where we crossed on the Golden Jubilee pedestrian bridge and walked down the South Bank to the Globe. The performance was great, and we all took the bus back late to Cambridge.

Thwarted in our attempt to drive to Leeds Castle in Kent, we ended up going to Ely instead, and touring the town and cathedral. Yesterday, we went to the Orchard in Granchester (twice in one year for Chris and me), and enjoyed (so far as that is possible) the unseasonably hot weather by canoeing (not punting) the Cam. We took in an entertaining 3-person history of Britain production in the Corpus Christi Playhouse, but almost had an Arizona sweatlodge experience (you all know what I mean) when the ushers would not open the doors or windows during the performance. Today, we made a tour of Trinity and St. John's colleges.

The Fitzwilliam Museum (above) is one of the best in the world, and the four of us spent a morning there. It is a unique feeling to stand near 4000-year-old antiquities; they have one granite sarcophagus that one can stand right next to, look at the scribing on the stone, and think "The hands that carved this have been lifeless for four millennia." To be confronted with this level of human antiquity and culture is to realize how small one really is, and how short one's life. One can gain perspective in other ways than by looking at and thinking about the stars.

Oh, one more thing about the Fitz--lots of paintings. This time as I wandered through (I did spend most of my time at the local history exhibit [it's amazing the things they've dug up in town and dredged from the river] and in the ancient cultures section) I noticed the beginning of what we would think of as landscape at the middle of the 18th century, though I did notice one bird's-eye view of the city of Florence (I think) from the 1450s. There really is a change in the way people saw things between the medieval and the Augustan periods in England.

My search for the Lehi Trail--First in the Mesa Canals Series

 

 

For several years, I've vaguely tried to find out exactly what that monument north of the 202 in east Mesa was about. You can see it from the freeway, right by the river as you zip by. Also for years, I've ridden the canal roads and have considered them unsung gems of mountain biking. These two things have come together in the last several weeks, as I ride the canals near our home. A major canal parallels McDowell Road to the south and crosses the 202 near Lehi Road. Where the canal crosses McDowell, near the Lehi Road turnoff (see the map), I see small brown signs, reading "The Lehi Trail." An Internet search has just deepened the mystery; the city has an urban recreation plan that mentions the trail, but there is no description of just what it is, or what its history is. As I have ridden down Lehi Road, I see signs for the trail until the turnoff to "the bridge to nowhere, which comes off Lehi Road, crosses the 202, then goes into an orange grove. However, after much poking around, I found the Lehi trailhead, on a turnoff just north of this bridge. Halfway out, one comes to the monument. It is an apparent Boy Scout project commemorating a pioneer camp that was made at the ford here. I believe there had been an intermittent ferry service and camp here already.

As an added note, the trail goes on past the monument, where it gets lost in a maze of tracks around Val Vista Road. One can parallel the canal and follow the river, however, all the way to Higley Road. One gets a bit lost in the undergrowth north of some isolated horse stables between the freeway and the trail. It does appear that the trail and tracks are used relatively regularly by horses and riders, as I found on my exploratory journey of June 26.



Quick timeline: trip to the monument: June 6, 2010; exploratory trip ending up at Higley Road, June 26.

Meeting Jesus at University

The first thing that strikes the reader about this book is that this is a graduate thesis or dissertation in sociology. That being the case, Edward Dutton uses plenty of academic terminology and attempts to cultivate an objective stance. But he’s clearly engaged in a sociological project, unlike Samuel Schuman in Seeing the Light. I would say that Dutton is less sympathetic to Christian and religiously-based collegiate life than Schuman seems to be. But he is looking at different things.

Dutton is interested in the subculture of evangelical Christian groups at European universities; he looks specifically at Oxford, Aberdeen University, Durham University, and universities in Holland, the U.S., and the Caribbean.

The gist of his question is this: he had been exposed to and participated in the activities of an evangelical student group at his university (Durham), and wondered why these groups seemed much more active (as he saw it) at universities like Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, than at the other colleges his friends had gone to. His hypothesis is that there is something different at the three universities above that encourages the development of “fundamentalist” [his term] evangelical Christian groups. The analysis is going to depend on a number of somewhat arcane terms: “leveling” rituals, liminal experiences, rites of passage, communitas, contestation. Some definitions might help here: leveling rituals bring people of various backgrounds together in a single experience, or set of experiences, during which the differences of these backgrounds (especially in terms of social status) are broken down. “Liminal” (in psychological terms) has to do with threshold or intermediate experiences. “Communitas” is a “feeling of togetherness and bonding in which social distinctions break down, often brought on by a rite of passage” (6). Rites of passage end up being rituals designed to bring people through a liminal phase in their lives. The other possibility in a rite of passage is contestation, in which participants in an experience create new boundaries, which the experience of “communitas” attempts to break down.

The most interesting part of Dutton’s book is his description of the evangelical groups he studied at Durham and Oxford. He doesn’t really have enough information about U.S. and Caribbean universities to make any firm conclusions, since he relies on others’ research for it. For the rites of passage he has experienced, he describes well the things that evangelical student groups do, concluding that the more intellectually and socially demanding the environment, the more students gravitate to groups that will re-establish some kind of structure for their lives. Other students are also attracted to religious groups, he theorizes, because of the innate stress of this “liminal” experience and rite of passage that college is perceived to be.

If you want the most efficient way to read this book, the chapters to focus on would be 1, 2, 4 (because of the research he cites on American Christian colleges), and 8, his short conclusion. In addition, his bibliography shows some interesting titles that might be worth pursuing.

The interesting thing is that this research doesn’t “go anywhere.” Dutton doesn’t do any more than note that this type of thing happens in situations that constitute rites of passage. One might theorize (if one were an evangelist) that this study suggests the specific receptivity of campus students, away from home for the first time, to making significant changes in their behavior and worldview, simply because of the nature of the experience. Whether one would see that as good or bad would depend on the nature of one’s own commitments.