Proms and animation :)

Hello again! I’m still writing this in Hahn airport, but I thought I’d break up the posts a bit.

I happened to see a poster in the Tube the other day advertising an animation exhibit that was closing this weekend. Oh!! I thought, I’d like to see that! It was the last week, though, so I had to go on Monday or Tuesday or Thursday (Wednesday being reserved for my Proms attack plan. Hmm. I hope the combination of those words doesn’t trip any security computers). I booked my tickets and left work early on Tuesday, navigated the Underground to Barbican, and entered the exhibition.

It was well done – the first exhibition space consisted of projection screens showing early black and white experiments with animation, with black thread dividers and UV light. Next you moved into a huge space with two giant screens on opposite walls, showing clips of characters from different films or animated shorts. From there on there were lots of smaller screens showing clips and full films, which frustrated me somewhat because I like to read everything and see everything and I ONLY HAD 129 MINUTES. I really enjoyed it anyway. One of the rooms was showing a clip from the original Tron on an entire wall, while another was done up to look like an abandoned building game-set, with a giant computer screen on which you could move around inside an actual game. Really quite creepy.

I was amazed to see a 1941 Chinese film with singing, and it had the bouncing ball on top of the words. I didn’t know that technique was so old. There was also an old French film about a fox, a really good Tim Burton short called Vincent, a Canadian film about neighbours that won an Oscar in the 50’s, and a clip by Len Lye (the guy who designed the water whirler in Wellington in the 1930’s).

On Wednesday I took lasagne to work, heated it up in the microwave, and then took the Tube to South Kensington, walked the subway to the Science Museum and then along the streets to the Royal Albert Hall. The line was only halfway along the block when I got there thirty-one minutes before the doors opened, and I was the last to receive a raffle ticket that guaranteed my place in line. I was quite pleased about this, and sat down to eat my still-hot lasagne and my mandarins, and snap open my umbrella when it started to rain.

The Prom was a piece called Bridge and a piece by Birtwhistle in the first half, and Holst’s The Planets in the second half. I’d looked up the Birtwhistle piece on Youtube beforehand so I knew what to expect: film to match a horror film. I quite enjoyed it (though I think the man behind me didn’t, so much), and at the end the composer was brought down from the audience and seemed very pleased with everything.

The Planets was excellent. When Mars began, someone near me whispered Star Wars!, and I think John Williams may have taken some inspiration from Holst – Mercury reminded me of Harry Potter. If you don’t know which pieces I’m talking about, look up Holst Mars or Holst Jupiter and listen – these are probably the most famous. Despite Mars being The Bringer of War and much less subtle than some of the other Planets, I think it’s my favourite. I couldn’t stop grinning as the huge sound filled the hall. And I’d love to play the tambourine for Jupiter.

Great Expectations for a week in London

Being this present week too fatigued to conclude my Wednesday post, the Wednesday post is occurring on Saturday at the same time as the Saturday post. I hope none of my readers are confused by two objects occupying the same space.

I have recently finished Great Expectations (as you can see from my bookshelf to the right). Having read Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, and knowing the story otherwise through popular culture and possibly some television drama, in many places I knew what was to happen before it did. Even so I enjoyed it, and have since found myself writing in a somewhat Dickensian style.

This may perhaps be suitable for blog posts and suchlike, but I came across difficulties Thursday evening when trying to write from the perspective of a twenty-first century teenage girl. Unless she had been immersed from birth in a commune full of Dickens devotees, she would not describe things in the same mild manner as Dickens, and she would not talk to her friends and equals in a similar way.

Fortunately, I have learned to notice when I am lapsing into the voice of another author. Voice is a tricky thing, and I imagine it to be much like acting – you must think your way into the character or the story, and beware lapses into various divers mindsets (on a side note, I approve of the addition of an ‘e’ to that word. I was liable to imagine persons in wetsuits and breathing apparatus whenever it was used).

There were divers reasons for my fatigue this week. I ordered a large number of photographs on Monday, which were collected on Tuesday and put to good use on my wall that same evening. What had started as (I believed) an hour’s work became three and a half hours’ work, but I am exceptionally pleased with the result. Illustrations of my masterpiece in divers stages of completion may be found below.

Note the swirling Koru pattern :D

 

So, in short, I did not receive an optimum amount of sleep on Tuesday night. On Wednesday night I learnt that one must never doubt the tendency of the English to queue – I had planned to attend the Proms, and arrived early with Great Expectations, but did not see a queue in the obvious place. People were instead lounging in divers spots around the square, and it took your humble host a full fifteen minutes to realise that this apparently random assortment of people, when viewed from a different angle, formed a long, long line that disappeared down the steps, around the corner, and all the way down the street.

I joined the end of this queue with somewhat deflated hopes, which rose steadily higher as I neared the doors and then fell catastrophically when the Prom was declared sold out forty people ahead of me. Hundreds of people were turned away, so I joined the dejected mass of people in their amble to the Underground station. We passed the Science Museum on the way. This venerable institution was holding a late night, so I drowned my sorrow in a lecture on astronomic mathematics and the age of the universe. Arriving home later than I should, although earlier than previously expected, I went straight to bed.

Thursday has already been mentioned in connexion with character voice, and Friday involved an exhausted homeward journey and a nap. It now being Saturday, I am much refreshed and looking forward to a good English supper of minted lamb, baked potato, carrots and green beans.

Moshing at the RAH!

Proms, people. It is Prom season, and on Monday evening I stood outside the Royal Albert Hall in rain that couldn't decide if it was rain or not and queued for tickets to Swan Lake. I probably should have arrived earlier, because the queue was rather long, but it shortened much faster than I'd feared (unlike the awful ten people-forty minute queue in the bank at lunchtime) and I was able to get in.

You can prebook seated tickets to Proms, but they have at least 500 standing tickets available on the day for 5 pounds each if you queue. I queued for the Arena (henceforth the mosh pit) and entered a side door, passed through numbers of small warren-like corridors and into the mosh pit itself. Okay, okay, I'll call it the Arena. It is the Royal Albert Hall, after all.

And the Royal Albert Hall is huge. Even today, when we're used to gigantic ceilings and huge indoor spaces, it's impressive. In Victorian times it would have been absolutely incredible.

There's the arena itself, and then stalls surrounding it. Above that are tiers of boxes (sort of) set close to the walls, with seats three or four deep. There are three levels of those, and then a more traditional gallery above that. And then above that is yet another layer, where you lean on the rails and look down. The space yawns above you right up to the domed roof, and everywhere you look are touches of red and gold. At one point I noticed an audience member standing right in front of the organ, behind the orchestra, and it took me a few moments to realise it was actually a bust of Prince Albert. The forgotten glasses strike again. The Hall holds 6000 people, and the concert was sold out.

I didn't realise until halfway through that it wasn't just determination that was keeping people standing - you weren't allowed to sit down on the floor if you had standing tickets. I managed to get all the way to the end despite my two inch heels (my amazing red boots again. Comfortable, but not that comfortable), which was more than some people did - quite a few of the standing crowd left at intermission.

I'd actually thought the intermission was the end, because people were moving and saying 'that's it' and discussing going home, and was disappointed beause the end seemed quite abrupt. At the door I realised it was only half time due to the ushers scanning peoples' tickets 'for re-entry', so I bought an overpriced icecream (Haagen Dazs) and wandered through the halls. The halls are bigger around the main seating areas, but I still wouldn't like to have to evacuate.

The second half was definitely worth the sore feet. The orchestra was very good, and the conductor kept having to return to the stage because of the applause. He came back seven times in all, and the Hall rang to the sound of clapping and stamping feet (it's amazing how much better sore feet feel after stamping).

I'm planning to go again in a few weeks to hear Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (if you don't know which one that is, look it up on Youube). The prebook tickets are already sold out, so I hope the queues won't be too bad to get in....