A Week in Badass

I know it's been a while since the last update. I apologize for living life.
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This week's Art in London class took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This picture doesn't really do the building justice, because it's actually quite large.
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I arrived way too early for class because I needed to do some last-minute research on my topic, but I found some cool stuff while I waited.
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Yay! Rapiers and shit! I love rapiers and shit! Then, I discovered that they had a feudal Japan section.
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Oh, the pictures that were taken...
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This displays holds the basic katana (samuria longsword) and wakizashi (samuria shortsword), but also held a large collection of ornate tsubas (guards)

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Just wakizashi.
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Just katana.
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As you might have guessed by now, I love feudal Japan and samurai shit.
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If anybody has a spare set of armor like this, let me know. I'll gladly take it off your hands.
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When the class actually started, I could tell it wasn't going to be as exciting as looking at all the weapons when we ran into one of the original copies of the complete works of Geoffrery Chaucer. Oh well, it can't all be weapons and armor...
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...or could it? That weird-looking shield is actually one of the craftiest things I've ever seen: it's a buckle with a gun in it. Awesome.
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Elizabeth I was an interesting broad, by the way. She loved to see men in armor, but she also wanted men to show off their leg muscles. So, if you were a male courtier in Elizabethan times, chances are, you wore full plate male from your neck to your waist and leggings from your waist down. An interesting look to say the least.

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Armor got a little bit more practical around the time of Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War. They quickly realized that a full suit of armor was more of a liability when your enemies had guns. They quickly took a lot of the heavy shit off.
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Things started to go downhill from there in terms of badassness: Georgian living rooms, Victorian music rooms, tapestries, functionless cabinets, etc. I began to lose hope until I saw this:
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"Athlete Struggling with a Python" - This is the single-most badass sculpture, nay, most badass piece of art I've ever seen. The snake is trying to crush the dude, so the dude is trying to crush the snake with his bare hands. I don't care where you're from...that's fucking awesome. I want this statue in my future home, because nothing says art like battling with a snake.
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...absolutely nothing. Even the statues of dogs are wrestling with snakes.

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The next night was our theatre trip. We found a cheese shop. Look at how much cheese this place had...LOOK AT IT! This is absurd! Do they have a high demand for cheese here or do they just not have a storage room in back? LOOK AT THE FUCKING CHEESE! THERE IS SO MUCH CHEESE!
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Play of the Week: "Be Near Me" @ the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden

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No one really knew anything about this play. It was a recent adaptation from a book or something that no one had really heard of; however, there was a shocking revelation about who not only wrote the adaptation for stage, but also starred in the show:

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Ian McDiarmid. Motherfucking Emperor Palpatine.
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This was my first play starring a Sith lord...and hopefully not my last.

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Granted, he played an English priest who was going to trial for sexually assaulting a fifteen year-old Scottish boy...

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...but I don't care. It was just a character in a show and I know it wasn't real.

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The real Emperor Palpatine wouldn't do something like that. He's too busy trying to control the galaxy.

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Well, thank goodness I know the difference between fiction and reality.

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DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK:

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We mentioned our little stoning incident to our former Sonnets teacher and director for King John, Brigid Panet, and she was rather shocked. When we mentioned that it happened in Dover, she was no longer as shocked. Apparently, Dover is a somewhat bad neighborhood with a lot of racial tension and unemployment caused by a tremendous influx of European immigrants into the south of England.

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In essence, Dover is like the British equivalent of Camden or Newark...except instead of getting shot/stabbed/raped/mugged/lit on fire by gang members, you get rocks thrown at you by teenagers.

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I'm greatful I don't live anywhere near Camden or Newark...that would be dangerous.

Dover (or "What The F*ck Is A Playwright?!")

Before we go any further, let me just throw down some quick updates and addendums.
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SCENE STUDY - We were going to do Portia and Brutus, but Greg (our teacher) said it was a little too Portia-heavy. Instead, he recommended that we do Suffolk and Queen Margaret from Henry VI Part 2. You still can't see it, though. Sorry. Read Henry VI Part 1 first, then, read the play; use your imagination.
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I also realized that I haven't said anything about the new classes I've had over the past few days.
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Combat for Camera (with Bret Yount) - It's mostly a knife-fighting class for film. I like learning the new style because I'll eventually need it for a SAFD SPT, but I'm still not a big fan of the teacher. The reason why American sarcasm and British sarcasm work separately is because in sarcasm, Americans use softer phrasing with a harsher tone and the British use harsher phrasing with a softer tone. An American who lives in London for so long will eventually adopt the harsher British phrasing without adopting their tone. So, American tone + British phrasing = you sounding like a douchebag.
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Scene Study (with Greg de Polnay) - We have literally 3 classes before spring break wherein we need to hammer our scenes down. This is gonna be a rough class, mostly because Greg knows his shit. He's performed at the Globe who-knows-how many times and this is sort of his life.
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Alexander Technique (with Dewi Matthews) - I'll let you know how I feel the second I realize what the hell we're doing in the class. It's incredibly physically-based and it's all about "efficiency of movement", so he says. Well...okay.
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King John (with Brigid Panet) - This is essentially just like the Sonnets class, only we're using her editted version of King John to work with and present. I like it. We have a good cast of people and it's not a stressful working environment...which is nice.
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Alright, that's all for the boring stuff. Now, for the Odyssey to Dover.
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We left Victoria Station around 7:45am. We thought a train would take us to Dover out of King's Cross. We were mistaken.
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It was about a 2 hour train ride, but it felt like forever because a lot of us were hungry and were really tired. Most of us slept half-way through the trip.
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We finally arrived in Dover around 10:ooam. It looked like a quaint little coastal town...that is until we saw a rather odd set of sights. The first of which was a man in a motorized wheelchair with the flags of England (the red cross over white, not the UK union jack) and the Confederate South (that's right...US Civil War) attached to the back of the chair. This would not be a normal day.
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The other sight was high above Dover on a hill: Dover Castle. We needed to check that out. It was our first castle of the semester.
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Now, I know the previous picture doesn't give a very good idea of how high that castle sat above the town, but let me just say that it was quite high up. We walked up a long series of steep steps and inclines to get there, stopping for a bried picture here and there.
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After a long, arduous hike up, we finally reached the castle.
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Best part about this castle is that it had an honest-to-God real moat...which was awesome.

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Worst part about this castle was nearly everything was uphill from every direction, both getting to the castle and once inside the castle.
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Damn you, castle!
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There was a great view of Dover from the castle, howevere, so it wasn't totally worthless to walk up here.
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Then, we actually went into the castle. Aparently, there was a group discount for groups of 10 with a leader. We were exactly 11 people. We elected Joel the leader because he paid for the entrance into the castle on hs credit card. Anyway, we went into the castle and had some good old American fun.
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We saw cannons laying around. Doug made a penis joke and we took pictures.
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We saw the English Channel from the battlements. We tried to see France from there, but it was a bit too cloudy in the horizon.
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We walked all the way up to the highest point in the castle. We figured it'd be all downhill from there.
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From there, we made our way to the central castle, which was the keep of Henry II. Those of us doing King John though this was cool because Henry II was John's father, so the play may have taken place here at some point. Also, this castle was used as Elisnore in Mel Gibson's "Hamlet".
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We saw more cannons and Doug made another penis joke. We took more pictures.
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We stopped by some steps to pose for an American Apparel catalogue.
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The keep was closed for renovations, but we found a trebuchet...which was nice.
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Once outside the castle, Jonathon and Phil got into a litte skuff...
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...with imaginary broadswords.
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This was not the first time they've done this since we've been in Dover...
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...nor was it the last. We all watched the spectacle. One of us, I believed filmed it.
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Nearby (still inside the castle), we found a old Roman lighthouse built when they first landed in Britain. They never really used it. They still don't use it.
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We left the castle and went off toward the White Cliffs (of Dover). They were everywhere, so there wasn't a tremendous need to go to the longest stretch of them along the coast. That little bunker in the side of the cliff, by the way, was an old WWII system of secret tunnels. We toured that and it was pretty cool...kind of like the Churchill War Cabinet, but in a cliff.
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We climbed to the highest peak of the nearest cliff. Of course, it was uphill.
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Now, the White Cliffs of Dover are white because they are made entirely of chalk. Naturally, some people took adavntage of this fact.
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We chilled out on the cliffs for about an hour or so.
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We watched the sun set behind Dover Castle, which was pretty cool to see. Eventually, we were all getting pretty pooped, so there was only one thing left to do:
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Drink until we needed to catch the train.
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I remained relatively sober, but some people got to the point of karaoke...which should give you some indication. We left close to 10:00pm, got back around midnight, and went to bed.

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Now, some of you must be wondering about the optional title for this entry.

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This tale is slightly darker than what I've been talking about thusfar on my blog...

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Right after we left the castle and had a bite to eat at a local pub, we went down to the water to chill out just before we climbed the cliffs. The beach was covered in stones, so we went down to the water's edge and started skipping stones. Innocent, right?

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Apparently not. After a short while, we started to catch stones rolling passed us. At first, we thought someone in our group just sort of kicked a rock toward the water. We weren't alarmed. Then, the rocks started rolling passed us more frequently. This was starting to confuse us. Was someone throwing rocks at us? We turned around briefly and didn't see anybody, so we just kept on chilling.

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POW! A rock hits me square in the elbow. I turn around, expecting to see some drunk idiot with two or three of his friends...but we see about twenty or thirty teenagers, between the ages of 13 and 16, all throwing fucking rocks at us. They stop the minute I turn around, I tell them that they, in fact, hit me and that it better not happen again.

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More rocks start flying. At this point, I'm fucking fuming. I'm about ready to whoop some middle school ass, when one of the kids (their alpha dog, whom I have named "Pudgey Little Fatass") starts walking towards us, arms stretched out to the side. We look behind him and some of the kids are mooning us. They're actually mooning us. Someone is going to need to resolve the situation, and I don't see anybody else stepping forward.

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I call out, "Yo, why are you throwing rocks at us?" PLFA yells, "Wha?!" I call out again, "Why are you...throwing rocks...at us!" He replies, "Why are you in my country?!"

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Okay. Now we know what we're dealing with: a mob of punkass little teenagers don't like the Americans, so they're throwing rocks at us to try to piss us off. I'm about 70% sure that they want something to go down. I don't know why I replied to PLFA the way I did when he asked why we were in his country, but it helped reveal a lot about who we were dealing with.

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PLFA yells, "Why are you in my country?!" I yell, "To study one of England's greatest playwrights!" Again, I have no idea why I yelled that, other than to answer his question as truthfully as possible.

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He replied, "Wha the fuck is a playwright?!"

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At this point, we just walked away. These kids were itchin' for a stitchin' and none of us wanted to get arrested or deported for kicking the shit out of some mob of cock-sucking little kids. As we started walking up off the beach, the started throwing even more rocks at us! At this point, Jonathon had had enough. The rest will be written in playwrighting format.

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JONATHON - Yo, what is you're problem? Stop throwing rocks at us!

PLFA - I'll throw rocks if I want to!

JONATHON - There are girls down here.

PLFA - I don't care!

JONATHON - You'd hit girls with rocks?

PLFA - I'll hit your girls with rocks!

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We we sick of this shit at that point and we just started walking away. They actually followed us for a little while, but then disappeared in the opposite direction. Anna called the police, but there wasn't really anything we could do. What...were we going to positively ID a group of thirty teenagers from as far away as we were and without knowing where the hell they went? We climbed up the cliffs, first pretty pissed about the whole experience, but then we had a good laugh about it.

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I so wish that I could have pummelled PJFA into the ground, but I had nearly everyone in our group telling me not to do it.

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However, I am glad that I got off one great line on them.

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When they started the third of their barrages, I was so infuriated, I took off my jacket, spread out my arms and looked them all dead in the eye. In retrospect, a dumb idea, but I had two pints in me from lunch and I wasn't up for taking shit from punkass teenagers. Even though they threw somewhere close to twenty rocks at me, not a single one came close. As I put my jacket back on, I said the following:
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"With aim like that, no wonder we won our independence!"
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(The following is a mature message for the people of the United States of America. Viewer discretion is advised.)

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Now, this event is important not only for everyone who was there, but for everyone who reads this blog and for all Americans, because there's so much hate in America today that we need to understand that no matter where you stand in our great country, there are people out there in the world who hate you because you are American. Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, the North or the South, vegan or carnivore, East Coast or West Coast, black, white, asian, hispanic, it doesn't matter to these people. If you come from America, they will hate you...and you know what? Fuck them. Fuck those bastards with a big, fat, dinosaur dick. Do you why? Because we're the United States of America, goddam it! We are the greatest nation in the world and the rest of you hating bastards can suck our red, white, and blue asses. We are the nation that gave the world baseball, lightbulbs, telephones, the internet, balls-to-the-wall action movies, Starbucks, McDonald's, football...REAL football, Disney World, and Grade-A whoop-ass.

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The only good Dover is a US Dover: Dover, VT...Dover, DE...Dover, NH...and all the other Dovers spread across our great land.

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O! say can you see by the dawn's early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming.

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

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God bless America. Fuck rocks.

I'm Covered In Bees!

Okay...the title merits some explaining.
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This past Tuesday, instead of going to a museum, we had a guest speaker (Clare Ford Wille, at historian) come in for our Arts in London class who talked about symbolism in art and how you make shit up about any given painting. After a brief slideshow, we all walked down to the National Gallery (we'll be there officially in a few weeks, so don't worry) and she started pointing out the little symbols and stuff in paintings. It was like a Big Bus Tour...for art.
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Anyhoo, we get to this painting, which is Lucas Cranach's "Cupid Complains to Venus". Painted around AD 1525, it depicts a distressed Cupid being attacked by a swarm of bees after stealing a honeycomb. Clare told us that the story was meant to depict the duality of love, which may prove painful to those who pursue it, but the rewards are sweet.
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All I kept thinking about was Cupid being played by Eddie Izzard.
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VENUS - What is it, Cupid?
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CUPID - I'm covered in bees!
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The next day, we got the latest news on the next series of presentations from RADA.

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REHEARSAL PROJECT (King John) - I will be playing the Bastard. His name starts off as Phillip Falconbridge in the play, then, he gets knighted Sir Richard Plantagenet...but Shakespeare only ever refers to him in the script as "the Bastard". Regardless of that, it should be fun. Closed performance...no one but faculty and my classmates can see it. Sorry. Read the play; use your imagination.

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FILMED COMBAT SCENE (Guiderius v. Cloten from Cymbeline) - It's okay...no one has read Cymbeline. Just know that I will be Cloten in the fight. Hopefully, we can convince our teacher to post the outtakes on YouTube. He won't post the final fight, though. Sorry. Read the play; use your imagination.
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SCENE STUDY SCENE (Julius Casar, II-i) - I will be playing Brutus in this scene that follows the meeting of conspirators wherein Portia expresses her concern for her husband and the strange way he has been acting recently. Of course, you will not be able to see this showing either. Sorry. Read the play; use your imagination.

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Don't read all three plays in the same day. Good Lord, you'd be insane if you tried.
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The Fitzrovia pub has fallen back into our favor by supplying us with a place to chill before the show Wednesday night (we got out of studio around 5:00pm, the show didn't start until 7:30pm).
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The Play of the Week - "The Stone" @ the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square

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It was a new play from Germany, so I doubt you've heard of it. It was in English, thank God, but that didn't really make the story that much easier to follow. There was a lot of time-jumping back and forth and it had something to do with the grandmother lying about the late grandfather of the family being a Nazi. Either way, it was an okay play. Not great...but okay.

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We discovered something quite fortuitous when we arrived at the theatre, though. Apparently, 30 minutes after "The Stone" ended, they were going to put on a new 10min Carol Churchill play...for FREE! How could we resist? She wrote a quick little play which was described as "a play for Gaza". Okay...I'll bite.

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Bonus Play of the Week - "Seven Jewish Children" @ the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square

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Complete crock of shit.

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But hey...it was free.