The Monster Approaches; Somethings Wicked

The Foundling Museum

The museum showcases the history of the Foundling Hospital as the United Kingdom's “first children's charity and first public art gallery” established in 1739 by philanthropist Thomas Coram. The charity was established after receiving a Royal Charter from King George II after many years of petitioning and campaigning, and improved the lives of destitute children for over two hundred years. For the purpose of public fundraisers, artist William Hogarth donated and collected works of fine art for display, while renowned composer George Handel created original music for the events; turning the hospital into the United Kingdom's first public art gallery. While the original facilities were demolished (with the country preferring foster care systems after WWII) the museum is constructed in similar fashions of architecture and operates today detailing the Hospital's history and operates as gallery with temporary and permanent exhibits. Of course, of the permanent exhibits, the museum houses several of Hogarth's works and many artifacts from Handel's life.


The temporary exhibit was titled “The Fallen Women” featuring works of art exploring the popular Victorian motif of the woman falling from social grace (often ending in suicide). The exhibit was very poignant in context, as the Foundling Hospital accepted children from many downcast women from various backgrounds. The art was further complemented by actual petitions for the Hospital to accept certain children, detailing the accounts of the mother's “fall” (often including sexual assault). At the back of the exhibit, by a group of petitions, was a sound installation by Steve Lewinson featuring a whispered cacophony of the petitions, underscored by cello. As intriguing as the petitions were, more interesting are the displays showcasing the various tokens left by mothers to potentially reclaim their children in the future. Where the petitions give clear evidence to how the children arrived at the Foundling Hospital, the mystery behind the tokens representing the children never reclaimed was both fascinating and haunting.

The National Gallery

Opening at Trafalgar Square in 1838 as a new home for the public painting collection of banker John Angerstein, the gallery has offered classical Western European paintings dating as early as the 13th century for the enjoyment of rich and poor alike. Today, the sprawling collection spans a massive sweep of art history into impressionism, with an additional temporary exhibit. Starting with the 13th century religious paintings (many of them altar pieces), the early rooms of the gallery feature many marvelous shades of pinks and blues gilded with golden frames. The many early portrayals of Madonna eventually leads to Da Vinci's dimensional The Virgin of the Rocks, signaling a change of aesthetics and style. But before arriving at Da Vinci, we observed Paulo Vecello's Battle of San Romano (1440) as an earlier exercise in the use of perspective, and one of the many works in the gallery depicting Kings and military prowess. After moving through the romantic works the like of Raphael and Caravaggio, we admired Joseph Mallord Turner's painting Rain, Steam, Speed from 1844 which with abstracted imagery that inspired many of the impressionists, specifically leading to Monet's many studies of the Gare St-Lazare. The painting that inspired me the most was Monet's La Pointe de la Heve Sainte-Adresse, which was depicted a beach scene in relatively classical detail, but with the water and pebbles featuring a reflective quality specific to the impressionist style. Most interesting was the horizon line between the water and clouds, which featured an intriguing tone of silver which was physically textured from paint. A close friend once observed a similar feature in the horizon of a Van Gogh painting, describing the aesthetic as “real life”: somehow, the use of silver with abstracted cloud-work reaches towards a sort of ineffable and transcendent truth.

The British Museum

The history of the British Museum begins with the Sir Hans Sloane, who donated his collection of antiquities to King and nation (in return for 20,000 pounds for his heirs) with the collection opening to the public in Montagu House mansion in 1759 as the first public museum in the world. Today the Museum offers a colossal collection of artifacts and treasures, from the Rosetta Stone to the Lewis Chess Set and beyond. While many nations are petitioning to restore artifacts to their home country (despite what the museum's trustees will tell you), finding treasures from so many civilizations housed under one roof is an experience unique to the British Museum. While you can trace many cultural threads through the museum, our group followed the development of sculpture; from low, high, and full relief of mostly marble scenes and statues. Beginning with the ancient Assyrian relief sculpture depicting the Lion Hunts (where the creatures with the most emotional expression were the hunted lions), we then compared the style used by the Assyrians to the style of the ancient Greeks in the Parthenon Marbles.  Depicting a religious procession for Athena in the temple's frieze artwork, the style of relief utilized by both cultures was similar, but with vast difference in form and content. After examining many works of statues, we ended with the ever popular exhibit on mummification, which felt claustrophobic with the swarms of people at midday. Ultimately, the British Museum houses one of the greatest collections of historical artifacts on the planet, assuming your conscious is not troubled with the various methods of acquisition used to gather the cultural treasures. Furthermore, dodging the general public might be easier on Friday evenings when the museum is open until 20:30.

The Peacock Theatre; Into the Hoods

So let's be clear: Into the Hoods is a play off of Sondheim's Into the Woods. The production is a playful rendition and nothing else; not insulting, not blasphemy, not sacrilegious to the Church of Stephen Sondheim. The show is a light hearted play off Sondheim's show, in the way that Sondheim's show is a light hearted play of the original Grimm's Fairy Tales. 'Kay? 'Kay.

Admittedly, the plot was fairly dreadful, following two school kids who wander into the ghetto and must provide an iPhone, hoodie, yellow weave, and golden kicks before they may return home to presumably the suburbs. While not the most artistically deep knock-off plotline, the show did contain an impressive soundtrack of hip-hop music and beyond, and an endless barrage of admirable hip-hop dance moves. The soundtrack featured gems like an unique remix of Massive Attacks "Angel" combined with Buffalo Springfield's "For What it's Worth". With impressive dance moves and expansive soundtrack, I was able to overlook the obscenely narrow plot and generalized overtones of the production to enjoy the soundscape and feats of physical prowess. Also featuring the best hip-hop dancing midget-fairy-godmother I have ever seen and probably ever see.

The Donmar Warehouse; Teddy Ferrara

This was the UK premiere of Teddy Ferrara, a new play inspired by a true story. The topic of the piece was LGBTQ issues in American colleges and universities, and the unfortunate trend of suicide amongst this demographic. As a problem play (exposing societal issues but not offering solutions) the play addressed many poignant and intense issues, exploring the ideas through dramatic scenarios. To the purpose of bringing attention to these issues, the play was a marvelous success. Unfortunately, as a work of drama the second act felt like a draft and not a finished product. While there shouldn't be a "happy-ever-after" ending to the dark themes the play, the play abruptly ended without any of the the character arcs being remotely resolved. The play had good characters put into intriguing scenarios, however as none of the scenarios amounted to any form of conclusion good or bad, the play was left feeling like a political mouthpiece. And I'm not upset by that. Though the show created interesting characters to populate the relevant scenarios, the plot was resolved as much as the respective issues are in reality. If this was the point, the point was not made strongly enough. In the end, this play was a disappointment in tackling potent issues and yet not fully actualizing potential.

Curzon Cinema; Macbeth

Attending a movie was an experience in of itself when compared to movie theatres in the US. The cinema was very small, the chairs similar to divided couches, and with people sipping wine instead of gobbling massive portions of junk food. Although the commercials and previews lasted about twenty minutes in all

Now, Justin Kurzel's Macbeth, was visually perfect. The cinematography of the Scottish Highlands combined with the subtle soundtrack to create the perfect atmospheric tone for the piece. Fassbender took the character to interesting limits, having Macbeth's rise to power be at the absolute sacrifice to both conscious and sanity. So the movie was visually and atmospherically perfect, with great performances from the cast. The only thing wrong with this movie was FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SHAKESPEARE WOULD YOU PLEASE LEAVE THE SCRIPT ALONE!! With three (count 'em: three) writers adapting one of Shakespeare's most well known and popular plays, the amount the text altered unnecessarily was obnoxious. The film took innovative new twists to the classic plot at every turn, which I did not mind, but in order to make these numerous twists work with the text, the writers apparently had to rearrange the text constantly. To those not overly familiar with the text, this movie is probably perfect. For those of us who know the text to Shakespeare's play, having speeches continually rearranged was distracting to say the least. Was it essential for Macbeth's 'Taste of Fears' speech to come after his 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow' speech? I'm probably being overly critical, but if the original text had just been even remotely left alone, this film would have been the best adaptation to date. As the three writers ended up having a "copy-paste/delete" field day, this film put emphasis on telling the story visually and left much of the text as secondary to the story. A common sin with film adaptations of Shakespeare, but catering to modern audiences as if they cannot grasp the text of Shakespeare's most popular plays is insulting at best.

The Halloween Misadventure

Sometimes your company for the evening really wants to go out to a club for festivities.

Sometimes you don't have your Oyster card stocked, and convince your company to walk from Bloomsbury to Soho.

Sometimes you enter a pub/basement club with no cover charge and discover yourselves to be the only patrons there.

Sometimes you get club recommendations from people dressed as the cast from the Back to the Future movies when you stop into a pub to use the washroom.

Sometimes you get to recommended pub to discover one of your companions forgot to bring their ID and can't be let in.

Sometimes you walk back to Bloomsbury from Soho to retrieve the essential ID.

Sometimes you arrive back at the club to discover the venue is exclusively 21 and up and one of your party cannot gain entry even with the retrieved ID.

Sometimes the bouncers recommend a similar venue and you get half off entry from some random promoter on the street.

Sometimes patrons throw glitter everywhere and the blasted stuff lands in your drink.

Sometimes you wonder where the DJ is and find there is a whole separate dance section downstairs.

Sometimes a companion is deemed too drunk by the bouncers when they step outside for air and won't be let back in.

Sometimes you walk back from Soho and discover a companion had locked their keys in their room.

Sometimes you wake up the maid on night duty at 3:00 for the master key.

Sometimes sweat, make-up, and glitter equal an unflattering combination once under regular lights.

Sometimes your misadventure results in an essential day of rest and recovery.

Sometimes Halloween in London is simultaneously everything and nothing like you expected.

The battle against sloth and old habits rages with one month left in the city of London. 

Committed to memory are Shakespeare's Sonnet 23, Mary Oliver's The Journey, Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Hamlet's To Be of Not to Be speech, with Hotspur's Pouncet Box speech on the docket. Billy Pilgrim enjoyed a marvelous sunny day practicing these speeches and poems in three different public parks in the Bloomsbury neighborhood. Malexander Supertourist has become lazy, entitled, and arrogant: to be imminently attacked by The Monster when least expected. 

Tomorrow creeps in a petty pace while today sprints screeching like a banshee.