For Sarah

Moral of the story: Give Rob challenges to keep him from getting bored.

What does Rob do in London you ask?

This is of course, only a fraction of the many exciting activities that I pursue. Sunday afternoons I spend 3 hours watching my tulips grow and on Wednesday nights I go curling... Or play shuffleboard. Whichever is more boring.

Pikture Perfikt

I've uploaded some new photos to my London album (nothing great) and have added a France album. Here are les links.

London Album

France Album

And for good measure, here's an old picture of my brother... I guess we'll find out if he follows the blog regularly ;)

My friend, Mr. Satie

"I have come into the world very young in a time that is very old"- Erik Satie

So a little background information for anyone unfamiliar with Erik Satie (Don't fret, most people are!). I'll be quite brief, but do look him up on the internet or in one of those ancient artifacts consisting of bound paper...

Erik Satie (1866-1925) was a French composer who is known for being an eccentric, writing "simple" music with odd titles, and for his bohemian connection with the Montmartre district of Paris. His most popular pieces are the 3 Gymnopédies that were among his first published pieces in 1888. While these pieces are simply mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful, and timeless, you really need to listen to music from later periods in his life to fully appreciate his artistic genius. I recommend checking out music from the ballet Parade if you can find it. Another favorite of mine is the set Les Trois Valses Distinguées Du Précieux Dégoûté which show off a bit more of a chromatic and dissonant side... Anyways, don't miss out on all the great music he has composed by getting caught up only in the Gynopédies and Gnossienes, as great as they are... Satie shared a friendship, albeit sometimes stormy, with the much more famous composer Claude Debussy. I am personally of the opinion that without Satie, we wouldn't have the Debussy that we know today, but of course, I am one person. Satie had some influence on Igor Stravinsky and was greatly admired by John Cage. Other than minimal footnotes talking about "that strange little Parisian Erik Satie", he is hardly talked about in music history which I think is too bad...

Right, so the reason for the back story is that while Haley and I took a short holiday to France last weekend, one of the side-quests we embarked on was an Erik Satie tour. We began in the Parisian suburb of Arcueil where Satie lived for the last 20 some years of his life. We took a bus from the center of the city and after a 20 minute walk, arrived at the beautiful cemetery in Arcueil where Mr. Satie is buried.



Later that day, we went to Montmartre and stopped by No. 6 Rue Cortot which was a tiny apartment he lived in for a few years.




While there used to be an Erik Satie museum in this very place years ago, today it is simply an average apartment building. There is, however, a museum of all things Satie in his hometown of Honfleur... So we went there on Sunday! Honfleur is a port up in the Normandy region of France and sadly, is overflowing with tourists from all over France, Europe, and the world. Down a quiet street away from the throngs is the Maison de Satie, an interesting museum that features artifacts, music, and information about the composer. While parts of the museum were odd and not exactly relevant - i.e. they just had some weird stuff playing off of the "quirky composer" motif- other parts were great. I really appreciated that they played a wide variety of his music and that you didn't walk from room to room only hearing Gymnopédie No. 1 on a loop. I also enjoyed the footage at the end of the walk that shows clips from productions of his ballets and collaborations, including the film segment of Relâche which shows an aging Satie loading a cannon with some others goofing around. He wrote music to accompany the film frame by frame and it was said that this was one of the first silent films to have music composed for it in this manner. Anyways, here are some pictures of the exterior.



Did I mention it is in the house where he was born? Yeah, very neat.



I hope to put some footage from the French trip up in the next week or so.

Resolution No. 9

Alright, so no apology can really make up for the lack of blogging on my part in the past few weeks - or for the false promises presented in the last video post. But here, I shall put forth my resolve to, henceforth, provide an entertaining and insightful look into my adventures abroad and to make up for lost time. I have approximately 7 weeks- cheer me on and keep me on task!

Coming soon:
*France in a nutshell
*Erik Satie from end to beginning
*Tea things
*France videos
*No more shenanigans!

A 2 Hour Adventure

Tonight was going to be great.
It was destiny.
Let me tell you a tale about joy, sorrow, anger, loss, and life.

To set the scene, you should know that tonight was a scheduled "Tea and Chocolate Tasting Event" hosted by TeaSmith and some fancy-dancy chocolatier from 6-8 and and another from 8-10. I have been looking forward to this unique event for the past few weeks. I've had the flier in my things and was more than happy to pay the £50 bill. These are some really great teas!
You should also know that drinking good tea is probably my single most favorite thing to do. This is no exagguration. Lastly, I should mention that my inner monologue is usually a very happy place. Let me begin...

I had a clarinet lesson (which went quite well, thanks for asking) from 4:30-5:30 which has little to do with the story other than it rules out the 6-8 session. There was no way I could get to the east end of town that quickly and not be super stressed out. I like giving myself 15 minutes of cushion time when going to events such as this. The next best thing was to have a quick bite to eat and leave for tea at five to 7. I think I was singing Chicago on my way to the tube station. It was a great thing.

I had picked up the free London Paper earlier and planned on reading it and doing Sudoku during the long underground ride so I pulled it out and read some movie reviews. Things were going smoothly, I looked up at the map and counted 8 more stops until Liverpool St. (right near TeaSmith) and checked my watch to see that it was 7:25. Good. Now to figure out where I can put some more 9s...

7:35. 5 more stations to go... Except... We haven't left this station for a few minutes. Something is up. The announcement that we are being held at a red signal (a regular occurrence) and will be on our way shortly was barely heard over the loud speaker. I went back to sudoku.

5 minutes later... Another announcement. This time, the thought occurs to me to get off the tube, go back a station, go up the Northern Line 3 stops, and then take the Central Line over 5 stops. Does it make sense to take 8 stops and change lines twice right now? No, as soon as I leave this train, it will start moving again. I decide to stay. I'm not humming anything anymore.

It's 7:45. The announcement is made that it is unlikely that the train will be moving for a while. Passengers should seek alternative routes to continue eastward. Looking around, I see only 5 or 6 others still in the car. I give in. I get off and leave the station thinking that there ought to be a bus that is headed to Liverpool St. I look over the bus map and schedule quickly. I need #11. Look around at the signs. Nothing of the sort. Greeeat... Think fast, what should I do? I go back down to get on the next westbound train to change the previous station... My plan B from 10 minutes ago...

So now it's 7:51, I'm on a Northern Line Train with 9 stops and one switch to be made until I get to tea. I am not going to be on time. Now, as I type this, it sounds ridiculous, but at 7:52 PM on Thursday, March 12th 2009, I was seething with anger. I couldn't think of a time when I was more angry. The high point of my day, my week even, and I would not be there on time to enjoy the first tea and chocolate pair. To top it off, I really had to use the loo and if things had worked out as planned, I would have arrived with 10 or 15 minutes to spare. RAAARH! In my period of blind rage (7:52 to about 8:17) I had several thoughts. One being- "I should just go home. There is no point in going to tea and being all angry and pouty there. I should just go back and wallow alone..."
Another was "I can't believe this. I simply cannot believe the one time I need the tube to be decent, it is all messed up."
I think another good one was "Well, I'll only be 10 minutes late..."

But no, I didn't go home. I realized that it would be the foolish choice. The smart choice was to continue on, and make the most of it. In fact, in a moment of clarity, I realized that the tea would be so amazingly incredible that it would make up for all of this nonsense. Oh- then I got on the Westbound train at Holborn and missed the Eastbound one at the platform, costing me another 3 1/2 minutes. The anger returned.

I remember walking quickly. I always walk quickly, but I have a feeling that this was even faster than usual. It was 8:15 when I was going up the escalator at Liverpool St. Station and I knew It would take about 5 minutes to get to the tea shop... Outside the station, I broke into a jog across the street and continued at that pace until the sign of the tea place was in view.
"Ahhh, tea at least." I knew things would only get better from here. I came around to the door and thought it odd that the lights were out.

...

I assumed that the event would be held downstairs, so I thought that maybe they had turned the upstairs lights off so that people knew that the Tea Bar wasn't open. Then I saw it. There was a door with a buzzer and what appeared to be a set of stairs behind some tinted glass (the light was on). It shared the number 6 with TeaSmith so I thought "Aha. This must be a seperate entrance to the basement where the tea event is happening." I pushed the buzzer.

A minute later, an older man appears (in his 70s I'd say) and greets me with a smile. I think that he must be the chocolate master or a friend of the owner come to let me in.
"Is this the tea thing?" I pant.
"Pardon?" He says. I realized I wasn't being coherent.
"Is this the tea shop?" I revised.
"Oh no, they are next door." He said as he stepped out to turn and show me. "Oh, it seems they are closed."
I explained that there was a tea event going on tonight and that I thought his door was another entrance and apologized for the misunderstanding and thanked him for his time. He was a real gentleman.

Well, to try to understand what was going on with the world at this particular moment, I went around to the entrance from inside the market. Still dark and even worse, I could see that there were no lights on in the basement either. What on earth could have happened? How could I have messed this up? Well, for the time being, it shall remain a mystery- I have no idea what happened or where they are having tea and chocolate at this very moment... without me. When I learn the meaning of this, I will let you know...

So, I went to the loo, thank goodness, and walked (quite slowly) around the block once just to see if I spotted any of the familiar TeaSmith faces in a nearby building laughing, singing, drinking tea, and eating chocolate-covered happiness but nothing... I walked back to Liverpool St. Station trying to think of the saddest song I know that I could hum on the train ride home. Nothing seemed sad enough. In the station, I spotted a kiosk with a man selling mix and match gummy candies and other such things. This is what I needed to keep my hour and a half long journey from reducing me to tears. I counted up the change in my pocket, £2.25, and picked out what I thought was a conservative amount of gummies to buy. I was only up to 1.17- I took the bag again to add to it. Thanks to the chewy nuts (some kind of ungodly hard nuts covered with caramel and chocolate) gummy pig heads (yep, they look exactly like what you;d think), I weighed in at precisely £2.23. This fact alone was enough to brighten my night a good 14%. I ate the bag as I walked back to the underground and took the piccadilly line home.

It took some time, some walking-off, and £2 worth of gummy candies to calm me down, but what I finally realized on the ride home was simple. Between the line breaking down, and the lights being off, I should have realized sooner. I was simply not meant to go to tea tonight.
It was destiny.

Blog Hangman

Why not? Guess letters for the phrase below by leaving comments. I'll update when I can.

RO-OT KA--AROO- ATTACK TOK-O AT ---R--E


Good luck?

What?! An Update?

It's like return of the jedi. Except with 100% less jedi.