London Redux

My first period of respite found me residing in North London at YHA Hampstead Heath, having lately returned from Cornwall, then to spend the subsequent few days resting and relaxing, attending films, museums for round two, or in some cases four, and hiking on the aforementioned Heath, while I contemplated my next move. The first night I got in late from Bristol and spent the evening chatting about Zionism with a British Jew who approached me by commenting on the chess game being played by children in the room where we watched a doc about Genghis Khan, which was drowned out subjectively by our conversation and objectively by a plethora of young Spanish children who nattered on about their pre-pubescent topics (either willfully or blissfully) ignorant of their effect on the proximate adult populace. We discussed a wide range of topics, but the Middle Eastern conflict and the establishment of the State of Israel and its attendant consequences and history seemed to exert a centrifugal attraction on the conversation, as a tetherball may be batted further or closer to the pole, but never so far as to break free entirely of the subject. Such a thematic overarch, I suppose, was because of his early revelation of his ancestry and his name, David Cohen, and also his inquiry into my thoughts of the Iraq War as an American, seemingly collecting my opinion so as to add to a sort of personal Yank demography.

As with most such conversations, nothing came of it save sharpening of rhetorical teeth and further entrenched uncertainty. It came to light that he wasn't actually staying at the hostel but lived nearby and did not own a telly, so I never saw him again.

Other highlights of the Golder's Green trip included the viewing of Hidden (Caché), a French mystery film with Juliet Binoche, and Manderlay by Lars von Trier in cinemas, and Hamlet in theatre. The British Library was alos particularly impressive. While I lacked the time to peruse the stacks, which I think costs money anyhow, I viewed their collection of antique books, including the Lindisfarne Gospels, a Gutenberg bible, a fragment of Beowulf, and a page from the manuscript of Finnegans Wake, with the words written over each other, as if not a monolayer but palimpsest, and with marginalia going in all four cardinal directions. I also listened to some of the vast recordings collection, which I think is accessible online, including Yeats reading from some travel guide concerning Innisfree.