---
title: 'We Now Resume Our Semi-Regularly Scheduled Broadcast'
date: '2003-08-28T18:20:32-04:00'
permalink: /we-now-resume-our-semi-regularly-scheduled-broadcast/
tags:
    - travel
---

Alas, the blogging-from-London bit didn’t pan out quite as well as I’d hoped — in no small part because I was having too much fun to stop and reflect on the fun that I was in the midst of having.

Now that I’m back in the SoCal heat, and in the thick of semester-startup, and no longer having any fun whatsoever, I can stop and do that reflecting. So, a few thoughts about London:

London is a good place to turn 36. We spent my birthday at the [Tate Modern](http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/default.htm), and then walked up Fleet Street, through the Strand, to [Somerset House](http://www.somerset-house.org.uk/), where I made my second visit in four days to the [Courtauld Institute Gallery](http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/) (thanks for the recommendation, Corey!). The best things I saw were the mesmerizing Bill Viola pieces, [Five Angels for the Millennium](http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/CollectionDisplays?roomid=2144 "Tate Modern"), and Edouard Manet’s [A Bar at the Folies-Bergère](http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/portrait/story/0,11109,739736,00.html "Guardian"). Though very different, each has a way of just slightly disrupting one’s perceptions — the discrepancies between the scene and its ostensible reflection in the mirror behind; the uncertainty about the direction of the surface of the water — while simultaneously introducing a profound sense of melancholy. Very appropriate for the birthday at which one has arguably hit the statistical midpoint of one’s life.

London is also a good place to have one last night of being 35. We went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of [Brand](http://www.rsc.org.uk/plays/brand/ "RSC"), which was either [pedestrian](http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheatre/reviews/brand03.htm) or [monumental](http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/review/0,1169,970932,00.html), depending. (We found the performances breathtaking, but the play itself painful. But that’s what you get for going to see Ibsen.)

It’s good, in a sense, to be back in California — good to be back at work, good to be back online. London is, however, a difficult place to leave, particularly when you’re leaving someone behind there.