England, part 8: The beautiful cat endures

It was my last afternoon in London, and I went to Highgate Cemetery, which was quite close to my hostel. Karl Marx is buried there, beneath an enormous likeness of himself, and there's an odd assortment of other prominent people: George Eliot and Douglas Adams; the father of Virginia Woolf, and the baron who oversaw the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway; the inventor of Hovis bread and the doctor who devised the vaccine against typhoid in WWI, and a great many artists and firefighters. In late summer, in the brilliant slanting sunlight of late afternoon, it was an uncommonly beautiful place, and I wandered around taking dozens of photographs.

As I pondered the headstone of Herbert Spencer, a group of women and little girls clustered around a gravestone nearby. One of the children wants to know why the dead person wasn't there -- the inscription said he had "gone home." The adults laughed, and one explained that people don't like to say someone died, so instead they say that person "was called home" or "went to his rest" or "fell asleep." But what it really means is that the person is dead.

The little girls wandered around looking at headstones, and one of them found this one:



They clustered around it and conferred.

"It's a dead cat!"
"No it isn't!"
"It is! Look, it says, 'The beautiful cat endures.' It is a dead cat."
"Mummy! Mummy, come look! Mummy a cat died and it's really sad."

This concludes my account of my trip to England! (And it only took me 2 months to get through all the photos!) The whole photoset is here -- do have a look at the photos of gorgeous Highgate, in particular.

England, part 7: Hampstead Heath

My last day in London, a Sunday, was brilliantly sunny and warm, and I went for a long walk on Hampstead Heath. My destination was Kenwood House, but it took me awhile to get there, as I kept getting lost; twice I realized that I'd been walking for 20 minutes in a direction opposite to where I should have been going. But I didn't really mind; I was having a great time rambling around, soaking up the sun and eavesdropping on English people.

Two men in their 40s, walking with wives & strollers.

1st man: ... which worked well with my assistants in Hong Kong, but then it didn't work at all with my assistants in Japan.
2nd man: You have to find a balance. That's the key, finding a balance.

Man in his 40s to female friend: [Happily and somewhat bashfully] ... smart, funny, and she's half-Jewish. Her father's Jewish.
Female friend: [throwing up hands and laughing] Wow!

Londoners make enthusiastic use of their outdoor public spaces in fine weather, I noticed. Both the Heath and Waterlow Park, which I walked through later that day, were full of people having picnics, jogging, playing with their dogs, or just lolling on blankets reading paperbacks.



Full photoset here.

It's time for another installment of Toronto's Hipster Boys Say the Darndest Things

Bakery section, Dominion. A nerdy hipster boy in a leather jacket is talking at a pretty girl with an eyebrow piercing, who is ignoring him and browsing the selection of day-old bread.

Hipster boy: ... an unethical idea: I steal holy water and mix it with Jaegermeister.
Girl: [in deeply bored voice, still looking at bread] That's disgusting.

Hipster boy then pulls out his cellphone, checks it, and announces he has just received an "awesome" text from a friend who is in a bar getting drunk on "Jaeger bombs". The girl, unimpressed, says "He's getting drunk at 3 in the afternoon?" The boy says, "I think he's drunk already!"

Update -- Later the same day:

Driveway of Olivia Chow & Jack Layton's house. Two guys are sweeping up leaves & debris & putting them into boxes in a truck.

One yardwork guy to the other: Thinking and self-reflection are the only tools we have for self-regulation. Use them always!

That was the week that was

It's been an unusually busy, interesting week, though I didn't take many photos. A brief summary:

Monday: Visited Paul and Allysun and their tiny, brand-new daughter River. I believe that was the first time I've ever held a newborn baby.

Tuesday: Saw Nancy Cartwright talk at U of T, then went over to Trinity College to see Maggie, who is doing an M.Div. there, give a thoughtful and impassioned sermon on the metaphor of God as food. Appropriately enough, as part of the service I took communion, another thing I had never done before. The wine was sweet, the bread was wholewheat and chewy.

Wednesday: Coach House Books spring launch! A lineup of excellent readers, including Maggie, who read from her new novel, Girls Fall Down. Saw tons of book people I hadn't seen in forever. Jude's friend Katie is building a 20-foot mushroom in the Sculpture Garden. Sharon's wrapping up work on her "I Love You" book. Sean Dixon says he's writing a children's novel in which "a leaf dies and it's very sad," which led to Carl and I trying to explain to him what "emo" means. Etc.

Thursday: Long psychogeography walk, to commemorate Shawn's birthday. Started on Bloor, at the windows of Holt Renfrew (currently featuring an odd and underwhelming display involving lots of neutral colours and giant insects), meandered through Rosedale and into the ravine, all the way to the Brickworks, then on to Cabbagetown and Church St. A woman visiting from Scotland, a friend of one of the regular walkers, was with us, and expressed astonishment as we descended a flight of wooden stairs into the dark ravine: "You would NEVER do this where I'm from! You'd be robbed and killed instantly!"

(Above, a photo of office towers taken when we climbed to the top level of a Yorkville parking garage.)

Friday: Philosophy department end-of-term party at York, followed by end-of-term-party afterparty at the Duke of York, followed by several of us grad students (and one intrepid faculty member) roaming the dark streets of Toronto at 2 am. I led everyone down bpnichol lane and showed them the Coach House. We peered into the windows of the print shop and the bindery, and saw Rono, the elusive night guy at the Coach House. I have heard about Rono for years, but had never actually seen him before. He had a lot of shaggy grey hair, and he glared at us. I felt like we had glimpsed the Yeti.

Best overheard line of the week: A U of T undergrad to her friend, walking down St. George one afternoon: "I mean, even if you thought it was a dead balloon, why would you pick it up?"