Bernard Herman

Loose Marbles

I've been reading this New Yorker blog about New Orleans. In his May 8th entry, he talks about a band called Loose Marbles and mentions that they're playing in Washington Square in New York this weekend. I wish I could see them. Here's another video clip, with a better shot (towards the end) of their dancers.

Bruce Almighty

Dad said there was a group of Dutch kids at his program in Iona, Scotland who nicknamed him "Bruce Almighty" because they could hear him laughing 500 metres away.

Yesterday, Dad got some sightseeing in around London: He caught the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and then stopped in at my office before heading back to the Westminster area to spend the afternoon at the Cabinet War Rooms. He topped off his British government tour with a brief visit to the Houses of Parliament where they were having some debate on climate change.

In Chinese class last night, we learned that cathedral is 大教堂 (big church). Also, in Chinese they have measure words. So, whenever you talk about a quantity of something, you have to insert a measure word. You can't say three apples, you have to put a measure word between the three and the apples. The most common measure word is probably 个 (gè) and if you don't know which measure word to use, you can probably just say 个 and get away with it. But there are some particular measure words that you use with certain types of objects. Some can be translated as "glass" or "dish", e.g. 我要一杯啤酒 -- "I would like a glass of beer". We also learned 条, which is supposedly used for "various long narrow things" but we learned it because it's used for dog. Another measure word we learned a while back is 口 (kǒu), which means "mouth". Our teacher told us last night that this is a special measure word used for family members and pigs.

Dad met up with me and some friends after Chinese and we went to the Old Bank of England pub. Today Dad is visiting Coventry cathedral and tomorrow he heads out to Paris.

"Event Horizon"

The new Antony Gormley statues are up in London, and many of them are on my way to work. One of my officemates had told me a while ago about the installation on the coast of England (near where he's from), so when I saw some guys putting one in on Waterloo bridge the other day, I knew exactly what it was. They're up in conjunction with a show of Gormley's work at The Hayward this summer. I'll probably go, even though it seems ridiculous to pay for art when there's so much available for free.

People are already having fun with the ones you can approach. This one is showing the effects of his first Saturday night in London. The ones on the rooftops I find much spookier. They look like they're in a trance and about to step off the edge, and it's rather disturbing. The ones on the beach look like they're going to walk out into the ocean, unaffected by the bouyancy of the water.

Actually, the strangest thing is probably that they're all cast from the sculptor Antony Gormley's body.
It's one thing to have an anonymous statue all over the place, but to put up replicas of yourself everywhere... I don't know.

Here are some better photos of the statues.