Got Fall?

While uploading some of my holiday photos to the (no longer quite so irritating but still damn slow) flickr this morning, I was reminded of the striking contrast between autumn in Nowheresville and autumn in Mont Tremblant, just north of Montreal. Here are two photos of the same ilk, for comparison; I don't need to say which is which.


Despite this, as I have said before, Cambridge does look very pretty in the autumn and I have always found walking through autumn leaves to be very satisfying, along with various other seasonal activities. This is possibly because I am an autumn child and had my birthday and both of my parents' birthdays to look forward to as well as Bonfire Night and Halloween (not that I was ever allowed to do anything fun for Halloween, such as trick or treating, as Maman didn't approve of us harassing people; instead we had to stay inside and watch the local youths egg our house as we were posh). Fireworks, long, brisk walks, the central heating going on...what's not to like about autumn?

Here is a further selection of my recent photographic efforts, mostly from New York (top: The Empire State Building and Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn Bridge; The Moody Met; bottom: Flags at the Rockefeller; MoMA; St Patrick's Cathedral by Night)

Elizabeth I (I)

Channel 4 thoughtfully decided to show Shekhar Kapur's take on the early years of Elizabeth I's reign this evening, after I was reminiscing about it last week having seen the sequel (Elizabeth I (II)) and not been very impressed.

Somehow even the first film wasn't as good as I remembered (ah, nostalgia!). This is possibly as Tudor history interests me greatly, particularly the reign of Elizabeth and I have read a number of historical books on the period since I last saw the film (my favourite being Philippa Gregory's novel The Virgin's Lover, which goes into extensive and even explicit detail of the author's opinion on the relationship between Elizabeth and Dudley (early modern prophylactics! What fun!)).

While rewatching the film, something struck me as very odd: given that the film plays out as a story of forbidden love, it's strange that Amy Dudley (née Robsart) gets only a passing mention when Elizabeth's trusted advisor William Cecil tells her that, "[Dudley]'s married." Poor old Amy just wasn't good enough for him; so much so that he doesn't even feel the need to list her as a possible barrier between him and Elizabeth.

This is partly due to the poor timeline at the end of the film. In the film, Dudley is ousted from court and banished from Elizabeth's favour because of his involvement in a plot whereby the Duke of Norfolk would marry Mary, Queen of Scots and overthrow Elizabeth. Except, in the film this takes place in 1560 and so can't be the Ridolfi Plot of 1570, which led to Norfolk's execution. I guess the screenwriter got his plots confused, which is fair enough given how many there were in the 16th century.

Even if Dudley had been involved with whichever plot the movie is supposed to represent, it wouldn't have made too much difference given that his wife had already died in suspicious circumstances and he was, thus ruled out as a possible suitor for Elizabeth, to the relief of most of Elizabeth's advisors (in fact, it may even have been the case that spymaster general, Walsingham, arranged to have Amy Dudley killed so that Dudley would be implicated, although no one ever really got to the bottom of the mystery of her death).

I had also forgotten about Dudley's flirtation with and subsequent marriage to one of the queen's ladies, the coy young minx, Lettice Knollys. This pissed off Elizabeth royally, so to speak, but she could hardly complain at this point, having made her intentions perfectly clear. In the film, this isn't touched upon at all but perhaps the director was saving up for the sequel with Bess and Raleigh.

Watching the first film did make me think that the director was just too regretful that even with his shaky understanding of history he couldn't bring Dudley back to court in 1585 and have him continue his merry little dance with Elizabeth. The sequel has many callbacks to the first film but with Raleigh replacing Dudley: the dances, the lines, the stolen moments. Oh, Elizabeth! Why couldn't you just have married him? That would have worked so much better at the cinema!

Anyway, historical issues not excepted, I still enjoyed Elizabeth I (I), which is a jolly romp through the 1550s. Besides, it has a completely random supporting cast including Eric Cantona as the stern French ambassador (he just ensured that war ensued when Good Queen Bess was more interested in Dudley than the marriage suit he was proposing, rather than kicking her in the face), Angus Deayton as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a very young Lily Allen as a maid in waiting and the excellent Vincent Cassel as the Duc d'Anjou (very camp in this film). Oh, and Christopher Eccleston as Norfolk was actually pretty hot in a shaved-headed, blue eyed, scheming traitor kind of way. This was 10 years ago, though, I suppose.

The Waiting Game

This week's departure from New York was much less dramatic than that of two weeks ago. After a walk with the parents over Brooklyn Bridge and then through SoHo and The Village to my favourite coffee establishment (Joe's), we partook in a Supermarket Sweep-style last-minute emptying of Manhattan's retail establishments. Quick break for lunch at Bar Americain (a burger that was actually almost medium rare!) and then final shop, shower and pack before fleeing to the airport in our towncar.

It was grey and drizzly as well as being slow thanks to rush hour. No dramatic sunsets as per two weeks ago. Still, we checked in on time (just about) and the check-in guy spontaneously called The Powers That Be and told them that if anyone was going to get upgraded, I would (thank you First Class Check-in!). The main terminal concourse at JFK is a zoo at the moment so I'm just grateful to be in that great haven of the BA lounge with free snacks and internet (though not free WiFi). I tend to sleep whenever and wherever is convenient so I guess the upgrade isn't too essential. It is, however, very satisfying. Fingers crossed...

Mariah, Marilyn and Madison

Another early start ce matin. Today we headed down to Rockefeller Plaza for Dean & Deluca breakfast in front of NBC's Today Show. We were wondering why there were so many policemen and purple-clad women standing outside until we realised that they had all come to see Mariah Carey talk on the show (is she still famous? I wonder if she has learned to sing yet). In any case, people were super-excited...

We took a sight-seeing cruise around the island as it was a pretty nice day, and the tour was pretty good, even though the guide did mention a) that it was going to rain tonight and b) that New York hasn't been the same since "our twins disappeared" about 500 times in the course of two hours. Walking back from the Hudson into midtown, it was rather windier than I had realised and I had a Marilyn Monroe moment in the middle of Times Square as my short black dress was swept up in the wind. Oh how embarrassing...

To regain my composure, I strolled up Madison Avenue to Ralph Lauren amid all the ladies who lunch and celebs in disguise, before stopping for coffee on the steps of the Met and walking back through the park. The Upper East Side is lovely, if snooty. Saturday mornings are the best time to go as parents take the kiddies out for breakfast and a stroll in the park or a trip to the zoo. Domestic bliss, NYC style.

I'm headed to Broadway tonight to see the musical Spring Awakening, and then I'm going down to the uber-trendy Williamsburg district of Brooklyn with The Bro and his friend.

Golden Balls

It was inevitable that I would see Elizabeth: The Golden Age (AKA Elizabeth I II) given that a) it stars Clive Owen, b) I saw the parts of it being filmed in my college, c) it involves Tudor history (with hindsight - ha!) and d) it stars Clive Owen. In fact, I've been looking forward to the film's release ever since the filming took place during my finals (revision...Clive...revision...Clive...) and I have to say that I was sorely disappointed.

Elizabeth (part I) was great: it was enjoyable, it involved Joseph Fiennes and it was even reasonably historically accurate (enough for us to watch in my A-level history class on the Tudors without tearing it apart too much). Perhaps I prefer the part of Elizabeth's reign covered in the first film: from Mary's dying days where Elizabeth was locked up in the Tower unsure whether she would live, let alone whether she would be queen, until the fall of Joseph Fiennes - I mean, Robert Dudley. Most historical films have a love story element and so, of course, Elizabeth focuses on that between Dudley and Elizabeth.

Dudley is one of my favourite historical characters - not just because he was especially handsome when Joseph Fiennes played him. I suppose he was a bit of a cad, really. He and Elizabeth are childhood sweethearts but when Dudley's treacherous family falls out of favour (after the whole Lady Jane Grey palaver) and Elizabeth is imprisoned, he marries a Norfolk gal named Amy Robsart. At the time, this wasn't a bad match for him, as his land and title were confiscated after his father and brother were executed. Amy was pretty enough but locally minded, as well as being about 10 years older than him. 

Then Elizabeth becomes queen and everything changes. Robert is her favourite but being queen she cannot just marry him. Instead, she must execute her oh-so-complicated foreign policy, which was centred primarily around flirting with as many European princes as possible, in order to keep France and Spain from invading. Besides, Robert was married so it wouldn't do for him to leave the wife, even for the queen (after all, look what happened when her father, Henry VIII had wanted a divorce...). Nonetheless, poor old Amy was rather neglected by her husband as his star rose at court.

It was conceivable that Elizabeth might have granted the divorce and married Robert herself but then Amy had the ill grace to fall down the stairs at her Oxfordshire home and break her neck. This created a massive scandal: some thought she had killed herself, others thought that Dudley or one of his men had pushed her so that he could marry Elizabeth. Later evidence showed that Amy may have been suffering from breast cancer, which could have weakened her bones and meant that a simple fall could have broken her neck. Nonetheless, marriage was out and Robert eventually went off and married one of Elizabeth's ladies in waiting.

Thus begins The Golden Age:

Twenty years later. England, 1585. Elizabeth is getting on a bit and is increasingly worried about Philip I's Spain and his desire to save Protestant England from itself. She is still playing the, "I'll marry you if you don't declare war on us" game (which would have been my strategy in Civilization II if it had been an option), even though she was 50-odd and many of her suitors were in their 20s. Her friends are growing scarcer (Dudley had to leave court after the death of his wife) but at least she has three loyal friends: Francis Walsingham (her spymaster general), Bess Throckmorton (her favourite lady in waiting) and Walter Raleigh, newly returned from pirating Spanish ships. Who could possibly resist such a rugged, handsome sailor, freshly back from his adventures in the New World and even naming the first English colony Virginia in her honour? Certainly not Elizabeth and not Bess Throckmorton either. Raleigh is, after all, played by a certain Mr Owen.

Of course, given the choice between the pretty 20-year-old Bess and the ageing queen (who wouldn't be permitted to marry him anyway), there wasn't really much competition, although Raleigh is too keen for the queen's approval to tell her so to her face. It all goes horribly wrong when Bess gets pregnant and has to leave the court. Elizabeth is now truly alone - betrayed by her friends and with the Spanish set to attack at any moment and plots on her life coming left, right and centre, not to mention that annoying cousin of hers locked up in some cold, northern castle.

Part of me wonders whether this film is Republican propaganda: don't elect Hilary Clinton! Look at what happened to Elizabeth when she fell in love. She wasn't thinking, she was emoting! She knighted Walter Raleigh because she fancied him but had to give him a knighthood instead. She was wild with jealousy of this younger woman (which probably only reminded her of the affaire du coeur with Robert Dudley) and terrified that she would die in a Spanish prison leaving England conquered and was too damn irrational. Heck! She signed the death warrant of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, and then tried to change her mind when she knew it would be too damn late so that she could wipe the blame from her hands! Gosh, we really do need a man in charge of things. Perhaps this is giving the film makers too much credit but I'm sure the real Elizabeth would have been horrified to see herself immortalised as such.

Luckily, with the help of a good wind (or "God's breath") and Cap'n Clive's excellent sailing (and cannon-dodging and skin diving) technique, the Spanish are destroyed in (as the end notes declare), "Spain's most humiliating naval defeat" (pop quiz: name any other humiliating Spanish naval defeat). I thought this should have read, "Spain were never ridiculed as much again until Monty Python." Philip I, meanwhile, was played as a god-fearing, blue-eyed psycho, who carried a voodoo doll of Elizabeth and muttered to himself in a Gollum-like voice. All of the Spaniards were straight from central casting - party poopers who were just too busy praying to have a good time. They didn't exactly do themselves any favours with the audience.

The factual inaccuracies are too extensive to list here but particularly grating was this: Mary Queen of Scots spent the first 20 years of her life in France so what's with the Scottish accent? Did they think that would confuse an American audience? This was a shame because Samantha Morton was probably the best actor in the film.

The director did get points for not using the clichéd "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman..." Armada inspiration speech, though she was dressed up as Elizabot atop her horse on the south coast. Maybe he got so much stick for using the famous, "This is God's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes" line in Elizabeth, which were, reportedly, Elizabeth's first words on hearing of the death of her sister, that he decided to steer well clear second time around.

That said, there wasn't really much in the way of dialogue at all: it was mainly moody silences, dramatic music, Elizabeth's rotating wardrobe of beautiful, rich-coloured gowns, fire, and St John's College, Cambridge looking gorgeous (ah, the cloisters! Ah, the Bridge of Sighs! Ah, the cloak/puddle scene! So much more fun when you've seen them being filmed). Clive wasn't on top form although he did make an incredibly hot Walter Raleigh. Then again, with lines like, "Here. This is a potato," and "I have loved you as a queen but your mate Bess is fit as so I went for her instead" he didn't have a lot with which to work.

It's never a good idea to see a historical film with a historian (especially as the Tudors were my father's specialist period) and I was the only member of our party who even vaguely enjoyed the film and that was only because of Clive and John's. The Craig Armstrong score was good too.

Ah well. Anticipation... holds true again.

SoHo, Sienna and Serendipitous Hot Chocolate

After a rather late and mojito-filled night, I wasn't overjoyed to be woken by my parents at about six-thirty. Still, a hot shower and coffee (even if it was an Au Bon Pain crappuccino) made me feel a whole lot better and I persuaded the parental units to catch the subway down to SoHo for breakfast.

We went to the Vesuvio Bakery for breakfast, which is most famous for appearing in the background of the Tropicana advert (because Floridian OJ really makes you think of downtown New York). They managed to serve a pretty good cappuccino and a delicious poppy (yay!) bagel with a side of extra-crispy bacon (just the way I like it). We were just leaving when the teenage fangirl in me spotted Sienna Miller heading into the very same breakfasterie we had just left so I took the obligatory photo of Maman's ear with Sienna taking up most of the photo.

After a brief amble around the farmers' market on Union Square and the Flat Iron Building, we walked up to Bloomingdales for more shopping, this time accompanied by the family friends. I managed to buy a new jumper before we took a ride on the Roosevelt Island Cable Car (unlike in San Francisco, the cable car was actually a cable car) and then went for lunch at Serendipity.

Serendipity entered my sphere of consciousness thanks to the John Cusack-Kate Beckinsdale film of the same name. Cheesy rom-com that it was, who could resist the romance of New York at Christmastime and a pair of will-they, won't-they lovers? Anyway, said lovers went on a date to Serendipity and the last time I went, I mistakenly ordered the creatively named Catcher in the Rye Bread, so couldn't manage a pudding at all, which is a pity when puddings are what Serendipity does best (maybe that's why all NYC kids are so well behaved: they know that if they are good their parents will take them to Serendipity on Saturday). This time, I only had a salad but I still wasn't hungry enough to order the gorgeous looking sundaes, instead settling for some Serendipitous Hot Chocolate (grrr...).

The Stuff of Ambiguity

In line with my "anticipation is..." life philosophy, I must confess that on reading the first few chapters of The Stuff of Thought, I wasn't massively excited by Steven Pinker's latest book. Perhaps I am not really within the target readership. Whereas The Language Instinct and Words and Rules focused on syntax (the structure of sentences and how/whether this is represented in the mind) and morphology (the structure of words themselves and how they are composed), respectively, The Stuff of Thought takes on the meaning of meaning.

The first three chapters deal with various topics in the philosophy of language: what is meaning in the first place, the role of the verb in our understanding of an utterance (and the role of theta roles, which govern the number and kind of arguments, or noun phrases, a verb must have) and how we conceptualise concepts. Actually, I found the third chapter pretty interesting, if only because it was a considerable smack-down on the lovable, OTT Jerry Fodor who likes emphasis, verbos latinos and the idea that there are about 50,000 concepts hard-wired into our brain/mind. I also found studying concepts (particularly prototype theory) one of the most interesting parts of my degree, although I remain to be convinced by any existing theory, much as I liked to dabble in radical pragmatics for a while (whereby no concepts are innate and all meaning must be gleaned from context).

I enjoyed the chapter on metaphor and its ubiquituousness in language, although again, I didn't learn very much, having already read the excellent Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff and Johnson (the former also having written the intriguing Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, which is about grammatical gender in the languages of the world). I've written extensive essays classifying the different kinds of metaphors and indeed metonymies (metaphor being paradigmatic and exploiting similarity or contrast in an imaginative way, metonymy involves a syntagmatic relationship, exploiting contiguity), the most oft cited of the latter being synecdoche, or a part-whole relationship, as in:

Let's go chase some skirts - the skirt standing as a symbol for the whole woman

I was interested in the first part of the chapter on names as Pinker discusses the rise and the fall in popularity (metaphor alert) of the name Steven over time. Most of the chapter is devoted to the philosophy of language topics of definition and reference. For example, if Bexquisite is to be understood as the sarcastic, cynical Nowhereseville graduate who pens a certain subtextful blog and who works, practically pro bono, for a certain organisation, we are in trouble if it is discovered that the real Bexquisite actually ran away to join an Amazonian tribe 6 years ago and was replaced by an AI clone. What does "Bexquisite" mean then? Who or what is "Bexquisite"? Again, the subtleties of this were not overly exciting for me, having read the majority of the sources in the bibliography (it's nice to feel geeky again; I read a hell of a lot of books and papers during my two years in the linguistics department).

Chapter 7. Swearing. People swear a lot. Taboo is universal. Euphemisms are rife. Pinker shows off his knowledge and talks very dirty.

Finally, in the penultimate chapter comes the area of meaning in which I am most interested: pragmatics, or how to say what you don't mean. As a dutiful student of Paul Grice and his maxims of conversation (be relevant, be truthful, be brief (but not too brief) and be clear) that we all fallow in conversation, which is a cooperative exchange. When one of these maxims is clearly flouted, we therefore automatically assume a speaker is implicating more than what she is saying. For example:

A: Can you believe that story about C? I never thought she would do that.
B: I think I'll go to the cinema tonight.
- What B literally said: I think I'll go to the cinema tonight.
- What B implicated: I am clearly flouting the maxim of relevance, which should alert you to the fact that something is up; specifically that C has just walked into the room.

Pinker talks a lot about politeness theory, which was pioneered by Levinson and Brown and explains people's tendency to use indirect language as a means of maintaining face, both positive (the desire to be approved by others) and negative (the desire not to impose upon others). He also mentions an online study in which I remember participating. The results offer an explanation for why implicature (or uttering a sentence in which the meaning consists of more than simply its truth conditions (the conditions necessary to establish whether the sentence is true)) is so common in language.

One example consists of a driver stopped for speeding by a policeman who has several options:

1. Accept the fine. [The driver will receive the fine whether or not the cop is honest.]
2. Offer an overt bribe to try to persuade the cop not to issue a fine. [If the cop is dishonest, the driver may escape the fine. If the cop is honest, however, the driver may be arrested. High-risk, high-gain.]
3. Offer a subtle bribe along with an implicature, e.g. "Perhaps we can settle this here," while proffering a $50 bill along with a driving licence. [If the cop is dishonest, the driver is likely to escape the fine and if the cop is honest, it is easier for her to ignore the possible bribe because she can pretend not to know that that is the situation, in which case the driver may receive the fine but won't be arrested.]

As I waxed lyrical about ambiguity earlier, I will end this post with a quotation from the pragmatics chapter (entitled "Games People Play"):

When people talk, they lay lines on each other, do a lot of role-playing, sidestep, shilly-shally, and engage in other forms of vagueness and innuendo. We all do this, and we expect others to do it, yet at the same time we profess to long for plain speaking, for people to get to the point and say what they mean, simple as that. Such hypocrisy is a human universal. Even in the bluntest societies, people don't just blurt out what they mean but cloak their intentions in various forms of politeness, evasion, and euphemism.

Actually, perhaps I'll end with one from Ralph Waldo Emerson, having just visited his hometown of Concord: Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

Home, Sweet Home

Well, not really, but the more time I spend here, the more time the Big Apple is starting to feel like home. It says a lot really when a scummy, shared dorm room in an Upper West Side hostel feels more home-like than my house in Cambridge, and now I have a room to myself for the first time in weeks, the effect is amplified.

I spent yesterday downtown in SoHo and the Village: wandering through Washington Square Park, drinking fabulous coffee and watching the world go by at Joe on Waverly Place, browsing books at Three Lives and Co., shopping at Flight 001 (and chatting with the sales assistant about the sad demise of Frijtz in San Francisco), buying some emergency shoes when my flipflops broke, meeting up with Subway Dude in the Village and trying to avoid a woman who claimed to be a former flamenco dancer and that she was friends with Bob Dylan (and then proceeded to cut up her shirt), and then dinner at Cafe Condesa in the West Village.

Today was more of the same: shopping, caffeinating, wandering, writing, reading, chilling (something, I have discovered, I am not very good at), thinking (something I should probably do less) and just enjoying the (Indian) summer in the city. Last night, tonight, before returning to crappy old England. Still, I have a whole day tomorrow before flying back tomorrow at 10 in the evening and, as I said, I am back in two weeks, so it could be worse.

The Goodbye Girl

Another city, another coulda-woulda-shoulda, another farewell (or should that be ciao, adieu, take care or even a simple bye?). It’s odd how easy it can be to let someone into your life when you know it will be for such a brief, fleeting moment. You know you shouldn’t and that you won’t see them again and yet you have seen Before Sunrise and Before Sunset and have faith in the philosophy behind these movies. It bothers you, somehow, that your cynicism can be worn away so abruptly in the right circumstances and yet it probably shouldn’t. It is a good sign, you are sure.

After immense bullying from every American I have spoken to, I decided against catching the overnight bus from Montréal to New York last night and instead caught the train from the gare centrale this morning. It’s a long journey – ten hours – but very scenic. In fact, it feels as though I have teleported into the middle of The Last of the Mohicans (another favourite movie of mine) or Sleepy Hollow. The train travels around the Adirondack Mountains and hugs the base of Lake Champlain and then descends through the Hudson Valley at a somewhat leisurely pace.

However, my seat is comfortable, I have plenty of leg room and those thoughtful folks at Amtrak have even provided a power source for my laptop so I can write to my heart’s content and even watch a movie (Twelve Monkeys) now that I have finished the sequel to Brightness Falls, entitled The Good Life, which I enjoyed even more than its predecessor. Jay McInerney has a talent for evoking our sympathy towards the four central characters, none of whom are particularly moral.

ETA: Not so impressed with Amtrak now that I arrived in NYC at 11pm instead of 8pm. No dinner and no night-time activities for moi. Error.