my trip to the uk!
ok this entry is belated by two entire holidays! but i thought it might be worth posting up haha.i was just flipping through my uk trip journal trying to remember what i'd done back there, and i was once again struck by how different the culture over there was, as compared to back home in singapore. admittedly my experience was a little biased - if this wasn't a lit trip with the school, i would never have watched SEVEN plays in 18 days! i shall bring you the arty highlights here:
Bath (no, not the one in our hostel room - it's a district in England) was one of the most memorable places. Here, you really got to see loads of buskers. There was this really pro percussionist group playing on some advanced form of xylophone. Their performance was really spellbinding and quite a few of us stood around transfixed. At the end of the performance they started selling some album they'd recorded! i thought this was a pretty innovative marketing ploy - one you hardly get to see in singapore since most people do this recreationally. i think this guys actually depend on such performances to get publicity and gigs for a living!
you know how they say artists starve for a living? well over here i saw someone who came pretty close to fulfilling that cliche:
this guy was AMAZINGLY PRO. i think a few of us, as we were walking by, literally stopped in our tracks when we saw this guy. apparently his only tools was a set of pastels and the huge sheet of paper of about 2x4m he'd been working on for the past 2 weeks. (i actually asked him - though he seemed more interested in working on it than engaging in idle chit-chat. typical artist.) his canvas pinnings were no other than water bottles strategically placed to keep the paper from flying off and a tin box for donations. his reference was this relatively tiny picture from some catalogue - about half a piece of A4 paper. just amazing.
to see what all the fuss is about, CLICK HERE to see what he did.
all he did was to streak some places strategically with two or three different colours and he somehow managed to blend it perfectly. and with his bare hands if i recall correctly. i couldn't believe it myself..
my favourite play actually sorta came as an accident. we were resting on some public lawn (Royal Crescent, at Bath too!) when our tour guide - a really fun guy! - discovered that some theatre company was going to do a full dress rehearsal for A Midsummer Night's Dream that evening. so quite a few of us specially went back down to that area again in the evening. it really was one of the most magical performances of shakespeare i had ever seen. the actors managed to milk the comedy in the script for all it was worth! and the best part was that ALL of them were actors. They called themselves The Lord Chamberlain's Men and yes, they were all men.
here's a snapshot of the madness that was my Midsummer Night's Dream:
at first i thought their props and costumes were rather primitive, but their exuberance really made up for all of it. for the uninformed, the plotline involves a rather complicated 4-person love web which is made even more confusing when the fairy king (Oberon) decides to take revenge on the fairy queen (Titania) by making her fall in love with some guy whom he enchanted to have a donkey's head (Nick Bottom - yea that's really his name. Bottom <-> Ass geddit? >D). the Titania you see up there is really a guy in a purple dress not-so-worthy of Project Runway XDD
and also because yiwen has been bugging me about this, i shall post up some sketch i did while at the Lake District. the place is renowned for its beauty, and it's easy to see why poets like William Wordsworth (author of Daffodils) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge who lived in the area were so inspired to write about nature there. my youth hostel had a stunning view, being situated just in front of one of the lakes. right so if you're interested click the fragment below for the full thing:
yes im quite aware it's far from perfect (especially the monstrous clouds..) but yea i really enjoyed just being out there, sitting on the bench sketching while trying to ignore the evening chill.. plus it makes a great memento of a lovely trip <333
the words are taken from William Blake's Auguries of Innocence -
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
there's nothing quite like actually walking the same lands, breathing the same as air, seeing the same sights, that the great literary giants did, to remind you that the lands they wrote about do exist. but i think the most beautiful bit is the way they find a place in your heart, and burst out in your imagination.
alrightey i hope this entry wasn't too long! hope all of you are enjoying your hols! try doing something arty with the rest of them, especially if you're going overseas ;) and don't forget your homework too hoho. -groans-
til then, ciao!
posted by elsong @ 3:06 PM
Comments: 2
