A Week in Badass

I know it's been a while since the last update. I apologize for living life.
.

.
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.
.
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.
.
.
Yay! Rapiers and shit! I love rapiers and shit! Then, I discovered that they had a feudal Japan section.
.
Oh, the pictures that were taken...
.

.

This displays holds the basic katana (samuria longsword) and wakizashi (samuria shortsword), but also held a large collection of ornate tsubas (guards)

.

.
Just wakizashi.
.

.

Just katana.
.

.
As you might have guessed by now, I love feudal Japan and samurai shit.
.
.
If anybody has a spare set of armor like this, let me know. I'll gladly take it off your hands.
.

.
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...
.

.
...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.
.

.

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.

.

.
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.
.

.
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:
.

.
"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.
.

.
...absolutely nothing. Even the statues of dogs are wrestling with snakes.

.

.
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!
.

.

Play of the Week: "Be Near Me" @ the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden

.

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:

.

.
Ian McDiarmid. Motherfucking Emperor Palpatine.
.

This was my first play starring a Sith lord...and hopefully not my last.

.

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

.

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

.

.

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

.

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

.

.

.

.

DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK:

.

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.

.

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.

.

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