In which life meets fic and everyone survives
We had a glorious day with Adaese and wellinghall yesterday in Oxford. Adaese and Wellinghall were gracious and delightful tour guides and hosts and I just had a lovely time meeting imaginary friends.
Tea! Pub lunch! More tea!
Gorgeous magical books at the Bodleian Library! Oh these were beautiful. I especially loved Lewis' map of Narnia and instructions to Pauline Baynes and the Baynes illustrations of Tolkien and the wonderful references to Mandrakes and alchemy. There were references to how the initial draft of Magician's Nephew was going to have Digory meet Mrs. LeFay. The illustrations were beautiful, the accompanying texts in the hands of Lewis, Tolkien, and Pullman were fascinating, and it was just lovely.
Adaese pointed out the Dodo on the grotesque outside the Bodleian. Adaese had linked me to an article about them sometime ago. The Library had conducted a contest and added 9 new ones, including the Dodo from Alice and Aslan. You can see them here. And then we tromp over to the Museum of Natural History which also houses the fabulous Pitt-Rivers museum.
I saw the cat window, for myself. I saw the megalosaurus trackways, the marble columns, the animal and plant carvings, the REMOUNTED IGUNANADON that no longer looks like a kangaroo, and Mary Anning's icythosaurs. There was a plaque commemorating the Huxley Wilberforce debate. We spent some time poking in drawers (Q is for Quartz! Z is for zebra butterflies! D is Dung Beetle) and even though the museum was a shambles and we couldn't see much of it, I could see a little of the beautiful glass ceiling and the light streaming in on all these bits of bones and stuffed birds.
(the poor emaciated stone cats) (remounted Iguanadon with tail up)
And then the Pitt-Rivers which was the most extraordinary thing. I've never seen the like. It's just crammed with totally random stuff, in cases, three stories high, organized not by time, geography or culture, but by an item's function/similarity to others of the same. A case of surgical instruments, across the globe and across the ages. There was a case filled with little depictions of animals. A cheap plastic chicken souvenir from Mexico is put alongside an ancient Egyptian stone carving of a cat -- probably Bastet. The renderings are all shapes, sizes, species, from around the globe, and across 1,000 years. And they did this over and over, organizing things, dozens of them, by function. Think of your trendy wooden salad bowl from the local Target alongside a wooden bowl used to serve food in Tahiti 300 years ago. Uzi machine gun alongside blowdarts and boomerangs. It's a remarkable way of reevaluating the commonplace and making every piece extraordinary. I'm so grateful to Adaese and Wellinghall for taking me there.
AND THEN, the Museum of Natural History, again, today, wherein I prostrated myself at the altar of Darwin and evolution. The Cadogan Collection was especially moving. I saw a first edition of the Origin of the Species, the Archaeopteryx specimen, the Dodo (again), and then later, more of Mary Anning's magnificent icythosaurs and statues to Huxley and Buckland and a recounting of the 1860 evolution debate at Oxford. (are we sensing a theme? I was completely overwhelmed by it all over two days and needed to recover with curry and gelato)
And then we went to the Royal Mews where we met Lexington and Concord, Cleveland Bays who pull royal carriages, but not those of Her Majesty -- her carriages are drawn by Windsor Grays. The Australia coach below is a very recent gift. It's made of steel, has air conditioning, and has a kangaroo and a emu on the door because they don't go backwards.
Tea! Pub lunch! More tea!
Gorgeous magical books at the Bodleian Library! Oh these were beautiful. I especially loved Lewis' map of Narnia and instructions to Pauline Baynes and the Baynes illustrations of Tolkien and the wonderful references to Mandrakes and alchemy. There were references to how the initial draft of Magician's Nephew was going to have Digory meet Mrs. LeFay. The illustrations were beautiful, the accompanying texts in the hands of Lewis, Tolkien, and Pullman were fascinating, and it was just lovely.
Adaese pointed out the Dodo on the grotesque outside the Bodleian. Adaese had linked me to an article about them sometime ago. The Library had conducted a contest and added 9 new ones, including the Dodo from Alice and Aslan. You can see them here. And then we tromp over to the Museum of Natural History which also houses the fabulous Pitt-Rivers museum.
I saw the cat window, for myself. I saw the megalosaurus trackways, the marble columns, the animal and plant carvings, the REMOUNTED IGUNANADON that no longer looks like a kangaroo, and Mary Anning's icythosaurs. There was a plaque commemorating the Huxley Wilberforce debate. We spent some time poking in drawers (Q is for Quartz! Z is for zebra butterflies! D is Dung Beetle) and even though the museum was a shambles and we couldn't see much of it, I could see a little of the beautiful glass ceiling and the light streaming in on all these bits of bones and stuffed birds.
(the poor emaciated stone cats) (remounted Iguanadon with tail up)
And then the Pitt-Rivers which was the most extraordinary thing. I've never seen the like. It's just crammed with totally random stuff, in cases, three stories high, organized not by time, geography or culture, but by an item's function/similarity to others of the same. A case of surgical instruments, across the globe and across the ages. There was a case filled with little depictions of animals. A cheap plastic chicken souvenir from Mexico is put alongside an ancient Egyptian stone carving of a cat -- probably Bastet. The renderings are all shapes, sizes, species, from around the globe, and across 1,000 years. And they did this over and over, organizing things, dozens of them, by function. Think of your trendy wooden salad bowl from the local Target alongside a wooden bowl used to serve food in Tahiti 300 years ago. Uzi machine gun alongside blowdarts and boomerangs. It's a remarkable way of reevaluating the commonplace and making every piece extraordinary. I'm so grateful to Adaese and Wellinghall for taking me there.
AND THEN, the Museum of Natural History, again, today, wherein I prostrated myself at the altar of Darwin and evolution. The Cadogan Collection was especially moving. I saw a first edition of the Origin of the Species, the Archaeopteryx specimen, the Dodo (again), and then later, more of Mary Anning's magnificent icythosaurs and statues to Huxley and Buckland and a recounting of the 1860 evolution debate at Oxford. (are we sensing a theme? I was completely overwhelmed by it all over two days and needed to recover with curry and gelato)
And then we went to the Royal Mews where we met Lexington and Concord, Cleveland Bays who pull royal carriages, but not those of Her Majesty -- her carriages are drawn by Windsor Grays. The Australia coach below is a very recent gift. It's made of steel, has air conditioning, and has a kangaroo and a emu on the door because they don't go backwards.