London

July 7, 2011

Thirty-five years since the re-making.

King’s for evensong last night. They threw my comment about fortissimi back into my teeth, rattling the arches. Then to Saint Benet for a concert of dance music on lute and recorded, called “The English Dancing Master.” I’d rushed there to secure a ticket, but there was no need, as the tiny room was half empty and everyone at least a decade older than I. A thick rose is being laboriously trained around the door arch of that ancient church.

Afterwards, the bountiful Pickerel came through again last night. As I was re-acquainting myself with Alex–who claimed to have been hungover since arrival–I met Lucy Churchill, whose family used to be called Churchyard until her great-grandfather came home from WWI. She is a stone carver, and worked on the colleges until having a family drove her to the more time-effective pursuit of individual clients. Our conversation was wonderful, detailed, specific, and I realized that I was being flirted with at a rather advanced level. She left me her web page address, which I will visit. She said as we left that she had the 2nd best time with me she’d ever had at the Pickerel. I allowed that, because that’s where she met her husband. It was my second best time too, after meeting Steve.

J’s doxie was shouting into her phone in the hall at 5 AM. A number of lines were crossed that need to be crossed back. It was like a trusted child transgressing in the most public, disruptive and unapologetic way. Like most fathers, I have no idea what caused it and what to do,

London. It’s beginning to feel like home. The girls on the train told their boyfriends' most secret intimacies, cackling in derision. The Russell did not do right by me this time. There is none of the pretty views of the park which enchanted me with thins place, but, as in Florence, a view of the building’s guts crossed with pipes and walkways, roaring with obscure machines.

Gala for the Harry Potter premiere down on Trafalgar Square, joyfully silly.

Wandered to the Coliseum and bought a ticket for Simon Bocchanegra. Absorbing, it turned out. Turned homeward after watching the fat half moon rise over Trafalgar Square.