York again

[osprey_archer]

The highlight of the trip to Oxford: lunch at the Eagle and Child, the pub where C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and the rest of the Inklings hung out in the forties and fifties. In the room where they met. I sat in the corner by the fireplace and drank mulled cider and tried to write. As I was in a state of nervous exultation it did not work too well, but I got this:

"Griffin, Griffin, where are your wings?" said the cat.
"Well I can't very well wear wings after Labor Day," Griffin said.

One hopes there's more to that.

Otherwise I did a lot of walking. Aside from the Steampunk exhibit (!!!!!!!!) at the Museum of the History of Science I couldn't settle down enough to go to any exhibits of anything. But I did walk across the Christ Church Meadow, where Lewis Carroll used to walk with Alice Liddell; it was early in the morning, and the frost had not yet quite burned off.



It was a nice trip, and I enjoyed myself; but Oxford is a cold city. The colleges are almost all closed to the public, and it makes the place feel hard and mean.

I did run across one that was open, though: Hertford College, which was having a cake sale, with the college choir singing Christmas carols to attract attention. They sang beautifully, and I stood a long time in the courtyard to listen.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The cake sale and the choir, being serendipitous, sound especially wonderful, and the leaf seems like a perfect thing for the place where Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll used to walk--you can imagine them finding it and talking about it.

And the first line of your snippet makes me think of alternative-world nursery rhymes.

Griffin, griffin, where are your wings?
--I've hidden them away, with my other things
Griffin, griffin, where is your tail?
--I've traded it in for ice and hail
Griffin, griffin, where is your is your beak
--I found, I'm afraid, it had started to leak

And so on.

But with your second line, I imagine the griffin and the cat in high society, and *then* it becomes the beginning of a promising story.

I wonder if Oxford would be nicer in the spring? I wonder if the colleges are always closed to the public...

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Lewis Carroll would probably make up a very funny rhyme about leaves and frost, cleverly cribbing off a Wordsworth poem.

In the Museum of the History of Science, one of his poems was hung up next to the camera exhibit: an ode to cameras, based on Hiawatha. I should have written it down.

I'm worried about the poor denuded Griffin in that nursery rhyme. Without its wings or its tail or its beak, it's just a feathery Manx cat!

I think most of the colleges have open days occasionally, but not all at the same time. I'm sure the city would be absolutely lovely in the spring, though. The Botanical Gardens were lovely, but they would be even lovelier with flowers.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Now we know the origin of Manx cats! (Well, the feathered ones, anyway.)

Are you going to write more about the griffin and the cat?

An ode to cameras based on Hiawatha sounds very, very cool.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Probably eventually; I have to finish my final paper first. (Silly assignments, getting in the way of everything!)

The Hiawatha camera poem is here (http://www.infoplease.com/t/poetry/phantasmagoria/hiawathas-photographing.html). Really, the man was wasted as a mathematician.

the Hiawatha poem

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That is amazingly funny--I was laughing through the whole thing. I'm going to have to send it to my dad :-)

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I thought the same about Oxford. It strongly struck me as cold and exclusionary. I did not love it, even though I was so excited to visit it. O well. Enjoyed reading about your visit!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes; it's rather put me off visiting Cambridge, although everyone says it's a beautiful city. Why finish up my time in England going to a city where I can't get in half the places I'd like to go?