Snowing in October!

I just had one of the most amazing experiences ever. I walked home from the Bodleian in the snow! Yes, it is snowing. Melting as soon as it touches the ground, but still. It's coming down in big, beautiful flakes. They're caught in the yellow lamp light, twirl, dance, and die. I stepped out of the Bodleian (where I was studying) to find the courtyard empty, dark, and full of falling snowflakes. Still and magical. I grinned like an idiot the whole way home (even though my fingers almost froze off). Oxford and dancing snow. Smile. Sigh.

Oxford in Print

Some of these are just funny (and yes, they do enjoy taunting Cambridge), others hit closer to home:

Oxford is on the whole more attractive than Cambridge . . . and the traveller is therefore recommended to visit Cambridge first or to omit it altogether if he cannot visit both.
-Baedeker's Great Britain (1887)

What distinguishes Cambridge from Oxford, broadly speaking, is that nobody who has been to Cambridge feels compelled to write about it.
-A. A. Milne

Who can . . . walk up the Oxford High Street on a sunny morning or linger on a clear night in Radcliffe Square and not be aware of something more authentic than the life of everyday?
-The Character of England (1950)

Folded in a druidical mist, viewed from a sodden hillside through a screen of dripping branches, seen against a clear dawn, its towers like diacritical marks upon the lines of a text, or coyly changing its colours as evening comes on, Oxford beheld from a distance is as elusive and capricious as it was when we were there within it. Matthew Arnold spoke of it, twice and memorably, as dreaming, but the only reveries were Arnold's, those of a flesh-and-blood Oxonian eternally lacing his quest for gravity with delicious inventions. Oxford never dreams, it is far too wakeful and predatory, too eager to take us for its own. Turning to look back from Cumnor or Iffley or as the Paddington train pulls out, each of us reads the chosen signals. A warning? An insult? An invitation or an embrace?
-Jonathan Keats in Drawings and Sketches of Oxford (1983)

"It doesn't matter what the professors teach, it's what the place teaches..."
-Quoted in Richard Tames' A Traveller's History of Oxford (2003)

A Sunday Afternoon Walk

Here are some pictures from an amazing walk I took last weekend (when I should have been writing a paper -- but it was SO worth it!). Not 15 minutes from where I'm living, and suddenly there is open country, and river, and so much sky. I took the walk with the junior deans (RDs) from the Vines (the other SCIO house, where I'm not living) and two other students. It was a trip in "the lovely fall-coloured Port Meadow, through the quaint town of Binsey, past cows and horses and an abandoned abbey to the famous Trout Inn -- to enjoy some food and drink amongst lovely country scenery." Apparently it was a favorite walk of Lewis and Tolkien, and there was even a statue of Aslan across the water.

(the old abbey)

(Oxford, across the water)

Adventuring in London

I took myself on a date yesterday, and went to wander London alone. The Oxford Tube (a popular coach company that runs between Oxford and London, with buses leaving every 10-20 minutes throughout the day) had given out 1 pound vouchers at Freshers Fair (an event that will probably require a post of its own -- basically, a HUGE university club fair). An amazing deal, since tickets are normally about 13 pounds for students. The voucher was about to expire, and I had just finished an amazingly stressful week, so I decided to take a break and explore.

(the V&A courtyard)

As tradition dictates (my own tradition, not necessarily the tradition of humanity at large), I started off at Leicester square (after spending two hours reading Virginia Woolf on the bus) and visited the wonderful half-price ticket stands. Most shows were sold out for the day (I had been hoping to see Rain Man, with Josh Hartnett), so I ended up caving, and getting a ground floor ticket to Zorro -- a new show about (you guessed it!) that amazing hero in the black mask.

I then bought myself some coffee (a significant and necessary component for any adventure), and sat on a bench to enjoy.

Then off to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which had been highly recommended by my brother and sister in law. There I saw real samurai armor (Brendan and Thany -- how cool am I?), and an amazing display of fashion development. I also sat by a fountain in a central courtyard, enjoying the gorgeous architecture of the building, and the strange sensation of solitude.

(the V&A courtyard)

And then on to Zorro. What to even say? The stage was amazing. The lighting magnificent. They obviously had a large budget, and a talented artistic director. Some scenes were exquisitely blocked [blocking refers to position and movement on the stage], and visually stunning. So it had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, the acting, singing, and general story line were not very good. Which was hugely unfortunate, given the amazingness of what they were dealing with (how can anyone beat Zorro for style?).

But the dancing! The dancing may have redeemed it regardless. Everything that was true and heartfelt in the entire show was conveyed through the dancing. They weren't just good dancers, they WERE dancers. Movement was in their souls. It was the way they conveyed hate and love and experience and freedom. Dancing was life, and joy, and pain, and reality. It was community and it was power. (And by dancing, I mean that strange and beautiful realm of Spanish dancing, which captured my heart one summer in Minnesota).

I especially loved how dance became synonymous with resistance, especially for the women. They had no power to physically fight injustice, but they could dance. So they did. In one scene, three men are sentenced to death by hanging, and their wives (joined by women from the town) dance their protest, and their pain, beneath the scaffolding. The raw power of this scene, and the wordless vocals used in mourning (reminding me of Beowulf -- hair torn, crying to high heaven), could have made this a phenomenal show. But the creators kept trying to wrestle the script back into a traditional lyric-filled musical format. Which made a bizarre combination of eerie, primal emotion, and broadway-ish cheese.

However, the curtain call was so energetic and passion-filled they had the audience dancing in the aisles. And I was almost tempted to give in, and give them a standing ovation regardless (here's some footage from the experience). Alas, integrity must be upheld.

But the sword-fighting was INTENSE. =)

Oxfordshire, England

So. I am at Oxford. Studying Virginia Woolf and Classics. And this is my blog. It will probably be random, and it will definitely be sporadic (as my schedule dictates), but it will attempt to capture a piece of that deep and glorious burning that, for me, has always been England.

The Oxford Sky

They say the sky is the same everywhere. But above Oxford -- anyhow above the roof of Christ Church -- there is a difference. Is it fanciful to suppose the sky, washed into the crevices of Christ Church, lighter, thinner, more sparkling that the sky elsewhere? Does Oxford burn not only into the night, but into the day?

Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf (with some small alterations =)