Holiday Lights, Queen Street, Oxford
23 November 2014
Yesterday's weather was only slightly better than today's, which is to say that there were a few hours yesterday where it wasn't pouring. We decided to take a bus out to Blenheim Palace to see the palace and to see the Ai Wei Wei exhibit. We weren't aware (because I never read up on anything beforehand) that there would be a large Christmas craft show on the grounds, and that the BBC had done a segment on the palace days before. We were not ready for the huge crowds.
The bus stop was near the gate, at the end of a half-mile driveway to the palace. I didn't mind the walk. There were sheep. As soon as I stepped off the pavement and walked towards the fence, the flock took off, stopping at once and turning to look at me. So, here's a flock of sheep butts.
At the entrance to the palace grounds was a ring of food trucks. It was all meat and hot drinks, and one mobile champagne bar. Jack did not avail himself of this convenience, but he did post a picture to Facebook.
I could have taken pictures of the palace itself, but I always prefer the scenery.
"Come back here and take what's coming to ya! I'll bite your legs off!"
All I knew was that the Chinese dissident artist, Ai Wei Wei, has an exhibition at the palace. I assumed, wrongly, that it would all be in one place. Had I done my homework...
Out of ignorance, Jack and I saw a few of his pieces without knowing it. This goes a long way towards explaining why there was no explanation for the large wooden handcuffs on one of the palace beds, and why two vases were emblazoned with the Coca Cola logo. The palace guides weren't much help either. When I asked one of them if he could explain what the floor full of crabs was about, he mumbled something incomprehensible. The guide in the next room was much better, explaining that Ai, under house arrest in Beijing, asked for 3-dimensional images of the palace so that he could create new sculptures and place older ones in exactly the right spots. I did take some pictures, but, since there were no explanations anywhere to go along with what we were seeing, and no key to help us look for his pieces, I missed a lot of them. To see more of his work at the palace, follow this link. It was only later, as we passed through the gift shop, that we saw a printed guide hidden in a corner, selling for a pound. Too late now; we didn't buy it.
Here are my pictures. No flash cameras were allowed and the light was low, so bear with me.
porcelain crabs
a bowl of pearls
Along two of the walls of the long library were photographs of Ai giving the finger to just about every iconic monument you can think of. Given the stately backdrop, the effect was hilarious. I chatted with a guide, who was also amused by it. She said that a few people have complained, notably parents with small children. One elderly woman had asked her what the middle finger gesture means. Jack reminded me that flipping the bird is distinctly American.
Gaudi's Sagrada Familia!
A view of the palace grounds with sculpture opposite:
In the chapel:
For two or three minutes the sun came out, sort of.
I don't like shopping, but when I'm traveling I do like looking for Christmas presents for people back home. My goal is to find things that we can't get in the states, and it's even better if those things are handmade. So, braving the crowds, we shuffled into poorly laid-out tents to look around. We were too hungry at this point to deal with this mess, so we ate lunch instead. While Jack looked for books in the palace gift shop, I went back in to the craft tents.
The works were impressive -- handmade silver jewelry, blown glass (including a video of the artist at work, which transfixed me for a good five minutes), lampworked glass (the artist had a flame setup and was making intricate pieces that I couldn't afford), leather, wool, and wood. What caught my eye, though, were works painted on silk, overlaid on foil, embedded in resin. It took Sparkly Mary three years to figure out how to do this, nobody else that she knows having attempted it before. From a distance the pieces look like dichroic glass, but close up it's obvious that there's much more going on. Painting on silk is nothing new, but her resin process is. It's worth following this link to how she does it. It's not high art, but coasters are functional, and I can pack them easily.
There had been a downpour while we were inside. When we left, it had turned to mist. We got a glimpse of fall color as we made our way back to the bus stop.
More purple sky:
It was raining again when we got back to Oxford. Instead of going all the way back to the house, we went to Jack's office to dry out and wait for the 7:00 p.m. dinner. It was Guest Night. There would be more than one table. There would be assigned seating. Men would be required to wear bow ties and tuxedos under their gowns. I changed into the same clothes I'd worn twice before.
Jack made some tea. Here are the mooses I procured for him at the natural history museum:
These are Jack's goofy sleeves. I took this picture before the previous dinner; I don't have a picture of him in his penguin suit.
Each guest is permitted four meals in college in one term. This would be my third, and I can safely say that three is more than enough.
The smoking room was full of eminence grise, none of whom I knew, none of whom I'd ever see again, and many of whom Jack introduced me to, expecting me to have something worthwhile to say. Among these (mostly) men were three Sirs, a young Fellow who discovered a pulsar as a post-doc, and a Belgian guest who, like me, was feeling somewhat at odds with the situation. We cowered in a corner while Jack had a grand old time schmoozing.
I can't say I had fun, but I wasn't miserable either. The long, wide tables in the Great Hall force everyone to talk only to the adjacent person. I was seated at dinner next to an administrator who had designed the seating chart. I guess she figured we could talk about lowly administrative academic things that these Fellows never have to dirty their hands with, which we did. At dessert in the common room, I was placed between a retired Fellow who had been born, schooled, and employed his entire life at Oxford. Even he, though, needed to get to London every few weeks. I admitted that I was pretty much finished with Oxford myself. "On the other hand," he said, gesturing towards the window, "You look out and see this," the All Souls border wall and behind it the Radcliffe Camera. He soon began a conversation with the woman on his right, leaving me to look around in silence and wonder if I could leave. The door was shut.
The man on my left suddenly turned towards me and said that he should talk to me now. Turns out he's the son of a Nobel Prize winner (I looked it up later) who helped discover acetylcholine in neuromuscular synapses. \I admitted that I didn't recognize the name, explaining that I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. Jack thinks I should lord this encounter over my boss. I think I should keep my mouth shut. Why does it matter that I was forced to make small talk with the son of somebody I've never heard of, whom I ought to have heard of maybe, if I were one of those types who memorizes names along with facts, which I'm not, but which my boss is, so I'd only lose points, not score any. I was glad when Jack swept by and said it was time to go to the Smoking Room for coffee and chocolate.
There, the crowd was smaller. Jack fawned over one of the Sirs until the Sir cleared out. Then I was with the Belgian guest again, and Jack. We were trying to figure out the hierarchy by looking at the guest list. George, the youngest (but not least senior, according to appointment chronology) Fellow helped us out. I was sure I wouldn't remember the rules, which have something to do with appointment level, whether or not one is a knight, and time served. Pulsars and Nobelist fathers don't appear to enter into it.
Jack asked about a sign stuck behind a table of hard liquors.
By-law X.1, George explained, used to have to do with brotherly love. "But the numbers changed," he said, "So for a while it meant that one is not to remove newspapers from the room. Now I'm not sure what it means, but it must be obeyed all the same." This, I think, is the embodiment of All Souls College. This, and the mallard.
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