fall break!

The past few days have been WUNDERBAR here in Londontown. I've been exploring various new and exciting neighborhoods around town, watching tons of films, reading, etc.

Yesterday, I went to a few galleries. I saw a polaroid exhibition near Baker Street. The gallery was super-tiny and everything was WHITE in it, which actually was a nice backdrop for the polaroid pictures. I saw four taken by Andy Warhol, and I think my favorites were ones taken in 2008 by a British artist called Mark Quinn. He splashed paint all over his polaroid prints (mostly of eyes turned upside down). I also went to see a Damien Hirst exhibition. Apparently, he is the richest artist in the world, and very rarely does paintings (I think he does more installations and stuff like that). I didn't really enjoy that exhibition, but it was still fun to go. It is being housed in The Wallace Collection, which is in an 18th century house on Manchester Square. It's a family collection, so there were a lot of other neat displays, including portraits, furniture, china, etc.

Last night, I went to see Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques" (1955), which is part of the vintage film season at the PCC. It was really, really amazing. It seemed clear to me that Hitchcock would have probably seen this movie, and there were a lot of techniques that Hitchcock imitated in his later work, including a sort of suspense-building scene involving a bottle of liquor, a glass, and a vase. Going to all these films is really bringing out the film-buff in me; I bought a (kind of campy, cheesy) book of the "501 Must-See Movies". It's defintiely unsophisticated, but it has a ton of movies with information about dates, directors, awards, etc.

Today, I didn't get out the door until about noon, which was really lovely. I stopped by Sainsbury's for 2-for-1 pound croissants, and then at Pret for 99p filter coffee. This is becoming more of a routine for me - I'm really into croissants right now! Perhaps someday I'll learn to make them. After brunch, I went to Camden! Only three stops up the Northern Line leads you into a kitschy, labyrinthine marketplace with A MILLION semi-identical stalls selling everything from hookahs to Doc Martens to latex corsets (what?!) and everything in between. Being the genius that I am, I managed to stumble across a vintage, vaguely Army/Navy store called "What Goes Around." It. Was. Phenomenal. I have generally resigned myself to the notion that London (especially central London) is just ridiculously overpriced and expensive. This store wasn't cheap, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was really high-quality stuff for cheaper than I've seen in any other thrift store. A purchase was made. I'm not sure if I'm ready to talk about it here just yet (though it was under 40 pounds, Mom, I promise). It is beautiful and outrageous and warm and I think it may be in the top-ten of my favorite purchases of all time.

Still giddy with excitement after my purchase, I stumbled out into the market and decided to take the District line WAY East to Hornchurch, to check out the cemetary in which my great-grandparents are buried. My first impression of "East London" was very working-class, and much browner than central London. There were lots of ugly, cinderblock housing complexes that James said the government owns and lets to the working poor and the unemployed. Hornchurch is all the way out in Zone 6, so it took us an hour or so to get out there. It was already beginning to get dark when we got to the cemetary, and a combination of poor grave markings and fast-fading light meant that the cemetary was being locked up for the night before we could find the graves. I will definitely be going back, though, because now I know the general area the two graves are in, and so it will be way easier for me to find my great-grandparents the next time.

This evening, I went to see Roman Polanski's "Repulsion" (1965), starring Catherine Deneuve. This is Polankski's first film in English, and it was really a terrifying film, in my opinion. It basically shows the descent of a beautiful French girl in London into complete madness. The cinematic techniques were great: sound cut-outs at really dramatic moments, disembodied hands coming out of walls... really good. After the film, I came home and had some Earl Grey tea (another new obsession) and watched ANOTHER movie: Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940). I didn't like this one as much as other Hitchcock films, but it wasn't bad. It was based on a novel by a French author, but I felt that there actually wasn't much STORY being told. Maybe I was just tired...

That's all for now. Tomorrow I'm going walking in the country up on Hampstead Heath, then I'm going to practice my acting skills while conducting a hare-brained social experiment: I'm going speed-dating at a cafe/bar/record store. More details to come...