Friday 27 February 2009

L’esprit des corps

So, on my recent BA189 flight from Heathrow to Newark, I found myself seated next to an English girl, perhaps a few years older than me, who possessed an American-sized engagement ring and an interesting portfolio of the artistic type. She was also wearing cool trainers, and it occurred to me that it would be nice to speak to her. I always feel like going west takes FOREVER and a little conversation to pass the time is always welcome. But months in the UK have taught me that one doesn't speak to strangers unless certain conditions are met, so our interchanges were limited to "excuse me" and "thanks" and the like as we passed to and from the loo.

Then, as the plane neared Newark, one of the conditions for conversation was met. It began to get scary. After the crew was seated for landing, the plane began to ride like a bucking bronco as it descended through dense clouds and high winds. There was rollercoaster-esque semi-screaming from the passengers and a vertiginous drop in the pit of my stomach. The lack of encouraging words from the flight deck did not help matters. Cool-trainers-girl and I peered out the window at the circling clouds and looked at our journey monitors, which seemed to indicate the plane beating an increasingly jagged path in the direction of Philadelphia. I was beginning to wonder if someone had broken into the cockpit, perhaps planning to fly us into City Hall or the Amtrak building, when:

Cool-trainers-girl: This landing is crazy!

Me: Yes. It is.

Cool-trainers-girl: It's never like this.

Me: I know. I would feel much better if they'd just tell us everything's under control.

Cool-trainers-girl: Do you think it's the wind?

Me: They did say it would be windy when we took off.

And that was it. Apart from expressing our relief at being once more on the ground, we didn't speak again. The interaction occurred only when necessary, only when the least rational and most paranoid parts of our brains were thinking things along the lines of "what if this plane crashes?"

The experience made me think of a play I directed in November. It's called Neither Here Nor There and is about Italian immigrants to the UK in the years leading up to WWII. The war starts, Italian businesses are vandalized and the Italian men are shipped off as POWs on a recomissioned cruise ship that's torpedoed en route to Canada (the Navy forgot to mark it with a red cross to indicate prisoners were on board). Back in London, the blitz is underway, and as the women left behind have to deal with the rubble, suddenly the Italians aren't such a problem. Suddenly it's okay to talk to them, to be comrades in arms. Everyone's rendered equal by the shared tragedy.

The same thing happens on the tube today – no one speaks until you're stopped in a tunnel, or fined by a ticket inspector, or in a carriage where a Portuguese teenager leaves a bag on the train and you have to have a debate about whether or not to pull the emergency alarm. A disaster – whether large or small in scale – is all that's needed to precipitate conversation.

Take the recent snowfall – at the start of February, London had a proper snowstorm. It was lovely. Best of all, it made people lovely. Suddenly everyone was talking to everyone else. I was asked to photograph two different groups of people while walking home from Hammersmith. They were people I didn't know! Neighbors I hadn't met before were building snowmen in their front gardens. It made me wish London could be perpetually blanketed in snow. The snowstorm-as-conversation-starter argument may initially seem to contradict the comrades-in-arms theory, but actually they blend perfectly. The snow was technically a common enemy, but one we were all happy to lose to, since losing in this case was actually to win: a day off work, a day to sleep in, a day to build snow creatures, a day to bask in the warm glow and bonhomie that comes with confronting the enemy.

These interactions are so pleasant, and such a change from the norm, that it makes me wonder if I could somehow perpetually manufacture mini-disasters. I would make so many friends! On my travels through London, I could spill several coffees a day, break heels and trip down the escalators in the tube. I could also just hope for more snow. Or perhaps move to a somewhat friendlier place.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Bibliophilia, a replacement for Anglophilia?

Well, here I am, on day two of my love affair with the British Library, day two as holder of a reading pass, a genuine card-carrying intellectual! (Only not really, because I'm sitting here in the café, drinking a latte and taking a break before I look at Havel in the original Czech, and while that's all very valid, I suspect that if I were a real intellectual, I would not have checked facebook, but would instead be reading the New Yorker blogs. But hey…it's only day two. I'm still a bit starstruck.)

I can't believe it's taken me this long to get here. Actually, The British Library was one of the first places I came in London. In the summer of 2006, when I was travelling solo around Europe before heading home, London was my last stop. I was running somewhat low on funds and staying in Pimlico, so I told myself I was allowed one transport day pass with which to see something not in walking distance of my hostel. I chose Bloomsbury, maneouvered around the building site that was St. Pancras at the time, and spent a very lovely late morning perusing the exhibitions at the British Library.

I hadn't been back since, and I've no idea what I was thinking in waiting so long, because coming here has felt like coming home. O academia! O the obscure monographs on arcane subjects, o the furrowed brows, o the rows of desks and bearded professors kissing their lovely young students on the cheek in slightly lascivious greeting! O the book holders, complete with weighted beads so that one doesn't have to hold a book open in order to transcribe passages onto one's laptop (one in a sea of many)! O the certainty with which the woman who authorized my reading pass told me to come back once I've started my doctorate and get an extended pass! O the individual desks with their individual laptop plug-ins and reading lamps with little brass switches! O the wild-haired academic boys and quirkily dressed academic girls! O my people!

I shall stop rhapsodizing now. I realize I'm being a bit absurd. But really, this place is for me what a Star Trek convention must be for Trekkies – a little piece of world where the external rules and values mesh harmoniously with one's internal system. It doesn't matter that I'm in a city I don't like in a country that has rejected all my overtures at friendship. I am in The Library, which transcends nationality and even its own geographic location. It is so wonderful that, had I rediscovered it sooner, it might have saved my London experience. Perhaps I would have written that novel my Uncle Arnie has been telling me to write since I was eleven. Perhaps not.

I'm visiting the States in a couple weeks and I'm starting to regret it…after all, my current pass expires in May. Do I really want to lose an entire month of this bliss? Speaking of which, I really should be getting back to my (individually numbered and appointed) desk now.

Friday 6 February 2009

Miss-ing the point

So on Monday, it snowed in London, lots – the most in 18 years. All the schools were closed, so my love and I went for a walk in the snow, in the park nearest our house. As we entered the park, a group of teenage "youfs" approached us, bizarrely whistling the theme from the Disney's animated movie Robin Hood. It was hilarious and unexpected, and I started to laugh until their leader (Robin?) said to us, "Hello Mr. & Mrs."

Now, I object to almost all forms of impersonal address: "Miss!" "Ma'am!" "Dear!" (and most dreaded of all) "Mrs!" or "Madam!" I don't think I would object to being called "Mademoiselle" and I certainly don't object to "Slechno!" even when shouted at me by bums selling the Czech equivalent of The Big Issue. In trying to dissect this phobia, I've deduced that it's an age/identity issue. After all, the speaker, the person shouting "Madam" or "Miss!" at me, has to look at me and answer this question: "Is this female I see before me a Miss or a Madam?" I imagine that every flier distributor in London uses a complex mental algorithm that calculates a bunch of stuff about me, from my hair color (dyed or natural?) to my choice of bag (sensible or statement), coat, umbrella and shoes, before deciding which address to hurl in my direction. In actual fact, this is probably not the case, but the truth remains that these addresses carry weight.

Imagine the humiliation of the Victorian spinster forced to correct the unsuspecting stranger who addresses her as Mrs., or the way the title might haunt a woman who's lost her husband to illness. English school children call all teachers, regardless of marital status, "Miss," perhaps a holdover from the days when the only respectable profession for an unmarried woman was education. Even Ms., which I use under duress (I would prefer to use nothing but my name) is dodgy. It's consciously evasive and begs the question, "What is she hiding? Why does this woman not want me to know her marital status?" The absence of "Ms." from the cacophony of street-addresses is telling; it's something we tolerate in nonconformist women, we humor them by accepting its use, but don't admit it into pop-parlance. At the root of this issue is the question why, in the twenty-first century, marital status is even indicated in a woman's name. Men's names reveal nothing but their gender. With a doctorate, interestingly, one becomes genderless; both men and women can educate themselves into the ranks of the androgynous, but again, that doesn't trickle down to the street, or in my case, the park.

Why did this upset me so much? When someone, like Robin Hood boy, calls me "Mrs.", I feel older than I am and as if I am being mistaken for someone I'm not. I'm sure some girls love hearing it, and that's great, but at the end of the day it's just plain unfair to confront the female half of the population with hypotheses as to their marital status on a daily basis. To solve this, perhaps we should reinstate "Master" to refer to all unmarried men and see what chaos ensues. Or we could all adopt, "Hey, you!" Genderless, casual, vaguely proletariat...it has potentional.

207 - A Microcosm on Wheels

I feel a bit guilty writing here, as if I am being disloyal to my new moleskine, which, truth be told, I have yet to make more than about a 20-page dent. It's the full-size one, but still, it seems sad that it's been eclipsed by the arrival of my new (at)la(st!)ptop, an MSI Wind netbook. As we've only been together a week, I can't tell anyone in good conscience to run about and buy one yet, but we're off to a lovely start, my pretty little girl and I.

Today I had an interesting bus experience. I got the 207 – bus of misery – from Ealing to Home today. I nearly missed the bus upon which the incident occurred, as I was dashing across the street. I had briefly considering stopping for some Starbucks, but thank goodness I didn't, as I would have missed what transpired next…

I got on the bus in front of Sainsbury's. It was crowded in the manner of many a 207 before it, and it soon became apparent that contributing to the general malaise of the crowd were two bus inspectors. I had got on at the front of the bus, and in front of me, indeed preventing me from sitting or less obtrusively wedging myself and my stuff somewhere, stood one of them, in the process of ticketing a woman.

Woman: But I haven't got £25.

Inspector: That's okay, you don't have to pay now.

Woman: Well, that's good, because I don't have £25.

(I should mention here that the woman was British and posh-ish, in a mad cat lady, crumbling upper middle-class sort of way. The man was of an Asian persuasion, both were terribly polite.)

Inspector: Well, you can mail it in.

Woman: This is terribly unfair.

Inspector: Well, you have information to appeal the charge.

Woman: This is terribly unfair.

Pause

Woman: May I have my pass back.

Inspector: Yes.

Woman: May I have my pass now please.

Inspector: I just need to fill in a form and get a print-out.

Pause. Woman pokes Inspector in the back.

Inspector: Please don't touch my back.

Woman: Well, you're leaning against me, and it doesn't feel good.

Inspector: I'm not leaning against you.

Woman: You're crowding me out.

Inspector: You can say excuse me.

Woman: I don't have to say excuse me, you're leaning on me!

Inspector: If you'd said excuse me, I'd have moved.

Woman: Well, I'm saying it now.

Pause

Woman: May I have my pass please?

Inspector: Yes.

Woman: May I have it now, please?

Inspector: No.

Woman: Why?

Inspector: I told you that I need to write a report and get a print out. You'll get your pass back, but it does take some time.

Woman: Why don't you get on with it then?!

The two of them never struck up a conversation again, contentious or otherwise, but Woman repeated the entire escapade to the woman who sat down across from her at the next stop, who happened to be from Jamaica, which reminded Woman how much she loves Barbados. Or she did love Barbados, but she doesn't anymore because it's so expensive and too many rich people go there and she can't be asked to spend the same amount of money on food in Barbados as she does in London. And these buses – these buses are awful. They're set up so you can ride without paying – over half the people on this bus probably haven't paid. The old buses were better. The ones with conductors were better. But they'll be getting rid of these buses soon.

Woman: He ticketed me.

Jamaican Woman: What? He ticket you?

Woman: Yes.

Jamaican Woman: How much?

Woman: £25.

Jamaican Woman: I don't have 25p!

Woman: He's gone now.

Jamaican Woman: What?

Woman: He's gone.

And on and on…it wasn't her fault that she got ticketed, it was the woman in front of her – Polish, with a pushchair – and she pushed the button, but with the baby and everything it didn't work or she didn't notice…but they've given her the print out of her ticket usage and she always pays and there was money on her card. But she's not appealing, no point in appealing. There was a woman appealed, it was in the papers, and she lost the appeal and she had to pay the costs. So it's not good to appeal. But she's not paying it either.

Jamaican Woman: I don't have 25p!

Two things about the encounter struck me – first that the Woman and Inspector both used their natural politeness as a weapon. This seems to be an English thing. I was on a flight from Newark to London once. It was due to leave at 8am and all the passengers had somehow rolled out of bed and presented themselves at the airport by 6, only no one was getting checked in. We stood in a queue, waiting for instructions. Somewhere behind me was an older English lady, complaining with the sort of restrained indignation no American can truly muster, than she could not HEAR what was going ON. And REALLY, one might exPECT to be informed of any CHANGES to the SCHEDule, or if there was a PROBlem. Indeed, there was a problem, and the flight was delayed to the next morning, at which point she was in as persnickety a mood as the day before. She even managed to get upgraded to first class, complaining she was being stared at by people in the coach cabin: I don't wish to be looked at! Excuse me, sir, these BOYS are staring at me!

As an American, I have a good opinion of my ability to be righteously indignant, but no one can beat the Brits for polite aggression.