Random odds and ends
Ok, so my manager who has been off for two and a half weeks, called in sick today 15 minutes after his shift started, possibly because he's sunburnt. There is something very very wrong with this. Mostly, what is wrong with it is that it means again I am on my own for two hours and possibly very, very bored. So I thought I should post an actual update.
*****
I have no idea if I have already posted about this - bit my life has turned all upside down. Though I still love Stratford dearly, the Holiday Inn got all sorts of unbearable and my depression pretty much hit rock bottom - so I decided to get out whilst I was capable and have moved to London. I've got a temporary job back at UCL helping in the residences - which is mostly fine if a bit boring (stress free is good though, I seriously don't miss the panic attacks). Plus the pay is great or will be when I eventually get paid - it's monthly in arrears which means my first two months are without pay - this has been somewhat painful on my wallet, though not enough to stop me going out a ridiculous amount.
I'm working near King's Cross but living up in Archway, which I like - it is definitely rough compared to Stratford (where isn't) but there is a surprising amount of greenery and I'm all but convinced that I live in the middle of a labyrinth (everywhere looks the same, I get lost regularly). It's even quieter than Stratford weirdly as we're so closed in that no cars come round by us.
I'm renting rooms which are by far the nicest I've ever lived in - huge windows, wooden floors... well, wooden nearly everything really as my landlord and his friends built the street back in the 70s. My landlord is a wealthy hippy who vanishes to Portugal for long stretches of time and apparently was friends with Monty Python. And his dog is a calendar model. I like it when life is strange.
ETA: Living in London also occasionally includes awesome things like passing Angel Fucking Coulby in the underground - who looks ridiculously beautiful even when she is tired and in a rush.
******
My life in Stratford was mostly about going to the theatre and my life in London has mostly been about... going to the theatre. And other weird bits and bobs. I'm out three or four times a week usually and still can't cram in everything I want to see. Some of my favourites so far:
Beyond the Horizon - this and Spring Storm at the National are fantastic. The plays are both great, the set is beautiful and striking but mostly it's the acting that made me fall in love. Love triangles are acted out in both plays with the same core of actors, which give the pieces strange resonances within each other. Both Michael Thompson and Michael Malarkey are great but it's Liz White from Life on Mars who really shines - if you can catch her in anything, just go.
Oxygen - a weird combination of breakdancing and Russian theatre, but totally awesome. Written by Ivan Vyrypaev and focusing on what being young and disenfranchised and alive at the beginning of the 21st century is about. And about the stories we tell ourselves. It all fits together surprisingly well. "In every man there are two dancers. The right hand dancer and the left hand dancer..."
Hair - ok, I've seen this one several times but it's joyous and exuberant and leaving much too soon. Go and see it.
Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allen Poe - this is my utter favourite, probably the thing that I have loved most in years. It's gothic and macabre and moving and a musical and made me cry five different times and left me thinking and shaken for days. By the Canadian Catalyst Company, I'm just managing to hold off getting tickets for New York to see it again.
Next on the agenda is a Korean version of Romeo and Juliet, with martial arts. Yay.
*****
Not London based, but the RSC have also done an excellent version of Le Morte D'Arthur in Stratford, which I rather love and has finally helped me to read the book. Only got 150 pages to go. Both the play and the book are strange beasts and I might write properly about one or the other or both later.
*****
I am hoping you can help me out, oh clever friends of mine. There seem to be dozens of films about guys taking the 'not pretty, unpopular, geeky girl' and turning her into a prom queen or what not, but are there any where the opposite happens i.e. the girls 'transform' the unpopular boy instead.
I ask as for some reason my head has decided this is what it wants - and as is normal with my head, if nothing suitable is forthcoming it makes up it's own. It's a terrible affliction and now I have a full plot for a teen movie running through my head. There are english exchange students and girl friendships and a queer narrative....
*****
Speaking of things, you have no idea why you want. I was thinking about Friends the other day and how easy it would be to do a next generation style thing - with Ben and Emily, and Pheobe's triplets and Monica and Chandler's twins... not to mention any potential future babies they might have (I'm sure Joey must have had a few along the way). More worrying was the realisation that I'd actually really like to watch said show. Oh dear.
Then again, I also want to see a sequel to Flashdance done in the disney style (in disney sequels more often than not, the descendant of our original hero/heroine wants the opposite of what their parents wanted - so Arial's saughter longed to be a mermaid and Scamp wanted to be a street dog etc.) - so what I really want is a story of a dancer, who secretly goes out at night and fulfills her desire to weld.
Who's with me? No one? Oh, all right then.
This entry was originally posted at http://lorannah.dreamwidth.org/4446.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
*****
I have no idea if I have already posted about this - bit my life has turned all upside down. Though I still love Stratford dearly, the Holiday Inn got all sorts of unbearable and my depression pretty much hit rock bottom - so I decided to get out whilst I was capable and have moved to London. I've got a temporary job back at UCL helping in the residences - which is mostly fine if a bit boring (stress free is good though, I seriously don't miss the panic attacks). Plus the pay is great or will be when I eventually get paid - it's monthly in arrears which means my first two months are without pay - this has been somewhat painful on my wallet, though not enough to stop me going out a ridiculous amount.
I'm working near King's Cross but living up in Archway, which I like - it is definitely rough compared to Stratford (where isn't) but there is a surprising amount of greenery and I'm all but convinced that I live in the middle of a labyrinth (everywhere looks the same, I get lost regularly). It's even quieter than Stratford weirdly as we're so closed in that no cars come round by us.
I'm renting rooms which are by far the nicest I've ever lived in - huge windows, wooden floors... well, wooden nearly everything really as my landlord and his friends built the street back in the 70s. My landlord is a wealthy hippy who vanishes to Portugal for long stretches of time and apparently was friends with Monty Python. And his dog is a calendar model. I like it when life is strange.
ETA: Living in London also occasionally includes awesome things like passing Angel Fucking Coulby in the underground - who looks ridiculously beautiful even when she is tired and in a rush.
******
My life in Stratford was mostly about going to the theatre and my life in London has mostly been about... going to the theatre. And other weird bits and bobs. I'm out three or four times a week usually and still can't cram in everything I want to see. Some of my favourites so far:
Beyond the Horizon - this and Spring Storm at the National are fantastic. The plays are both great, the set is beautiful and striking but mostly it's the acting that made me fall in love. Love triangles are acted out in both plays with the same core of actors, which give the pieces strange resonances within each other. Both Michael Thompson and Michael Malarkey are great but it's Liz White from Life on Mars who really shines - if you can catch her in anything, just go.
Oxygen - a weird combination of breakdancing and Russian theatre, but totally awesome. Written by Ivan Vyrypaev and focusing on what being young and disenfranchised and alive at the beginning of the 21st century is about. And about the stories we tell ourselves. It all fits together surprisingly well. "In every man there are two dancers. The right hand dancer and the left hand dancer..."
Hair - ok, I've seen this one several times but it's joyous and exuberant and leaving much too soon. Go and see it.
Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allen Poe - this is my utter favourite, probably the thing that I have loved most in years. It's gothic and macabre and moving and a musical and made me cry five different times and left me thinking and shaken for days. By the Canadian Catalyst Company, I'm just managing to hold off getting tickets for New York to see it again.
Next on the agenda is a Korean version of Romeo and Juliet, with martial arts. Yay.
*****
Not London based, but the RSC have also done an excellent version of Le Morte D'Arthur in Stratford, which I rather love and has finally helped me to read the book. Only got 150 pages to go. Both the play and the book are strange beasts and I might write properly about one or the other or both later.
*****
I am hoping you can help me out, oh clever friends of mine. There seem to be dozens of films about guys taking the 'not pretty, unpopular, geeky girl' and turning her into a prom queen or what not, but are there any where the opposite happens i.e. the girls 'transform' the unpopular boy instead.
I ask as for some reason my head has decided this is what it wants - and as is normal with my head, if nothing suitable is forthcoming it makes up it's own. It's a terrible affliction and now I have a full plot for a teen movie running through my head. There are english exchange students and girl friendships and a queer narrative....
*****
Speaking of things, you have no idea why you want. I was thinking about Friends the other day and how easy it would be to do a next generation style thing - with Ben and Emily, and Pheobe's triplets and Monica and Chandler's twins... not to mention any potential future babies they might have (I'm sure Joey must have had a few along the way). More worrying was the realisation that I'd actually really like to watch said show. Oh dear.
Then again, I also want to see a sequel to Flashdance done in the disney style (in disney sequels more often than not, the descendant of our original hero/heroine wants the opposite of what their parents wanted - so Arial's saughter longed to be a mermaid and Scamp wanted to be a street dog etc.) - so what I really want is a story of a dancer, who secretly goes out at night and fulfills her desire to weld.
Who's with me? No one? Oh, all right then.
This entry was originally posted at http://lorannah.dreamwidth.org/4446.html. Please comment there using OpenID.