The loveliest of clichés

I received a well-traveled p!rated version of Paris, Je T'aime from a dear friend in India today. Note: he's not always in India, but he was when he sent me this postbox surprise. The movie is a lovely collection of vignettes by various directors that eventually come together at the end as you would want, but for me, it's not nearly soon enough. All in all, they are touching, funny, silly, and in love with love in the city thereof -- but the cliché is not even remotely sickening. Thankfully. Take a look at my blog entry on Paris if you want to know what I thought of the place.

I also got word of some new projects at Born magazine today - one is a Gatsby-inspired poem, The Smell of Roses at Night, that's put to the visual enhancement of transmutating roses powered by a finger-spun typewriter. When you read it, you won't regret the whimsical few minutes you spend. We can always use more than a single daily dose of beauty and poetry.

Europe Trip 2: London!

Update on Dublin: random people, czech. Cider, philosophy and religion, cocaine and E, irish jazz, check check. That made for a great last night, though missing trains and mass confusion made the next day a bit of a wash. Also: it's good to have British money when you get to Britain so you can eat.

And now... London has been quite exciting, if not loads of fun. Our hostel is out in the boonies but we've been doing as much as we can in the daytime. Met some people yesterday after we figured out the kitchen/movie lounge area was a good place to do that; but a few hours later, there was a stabbing which significantly brought down the levels of fun. No worries - I'm OK, but I'm worried for the mental health of young people (everyone, really) who end up out of their parents' houses and with big problems and no support network. Scary.

BUT, today was my b-day and we saw lots of cool stuff. By midday I had seen remnants of the dead sea scrolls, heard Seamus Heaney read his own poems, and saw the stamps that are a big part of American history: those of the Stamp Act of 1765. By tea-time I had traipsed all over Westminster to get the *real* story behind the uproarious religious herecies in Dan Brown's book, including:
-spotting knight's effigies in the knights' templar church that was consecreted by the patriarch of Jerusalem
-hearing the story of the origin of the Jolly Roger and the 1st traffic lights ever (that also exploded and injured the policeman who changed the color manually)

.. and was then seated for high tea at Kensington Palace. Tonight, I saw Avenue Q in Leicester square, which was great! Yesterday was a great design exhibit on the politics of modern design and the Tower of London.