I Hate Disco… if there was ever a song title made to catch my attention and agree with the band, this is it. The band name is The Telephones, and they have a lot more videos than this link makes you aware of.
Terrestrial Human
In my book, it’s still the holidays until we hit New Years, so one more set of images is allowed. This time around it is the star at Seven Dials, and some more stars from just a few blocks away. Blocks is kind of a lose term in London, and any other city that is a thousand years old or better, I suspect. The place wasn’t exactly planed and designed, but just kind of grew there as people built stuff. So no two blocks are the same size, and roads rarely meet at 90 degree angles, which looks kind of strange to anyone who grew up in a city laid out on a grid. Seven Dials itself is a perfect example; 7 roads all intersect at a single circle, pretty much at the same angles as the points on that star, hence the name of the neighborhood.
The day after Xmas, December 26th, is often called Boxing Day, but not because they have a bunch of boxes they need to throw out (although that would have been my guess). Rather, after all the important people have celebrated the holiday, they hand out Xmas Boxes to the servants, peons, and blue collar workers who had to keep everything going during the first celebration. I find this more than a bit depressing, so I will just jump straight back into the lights. This time around a few of the Oxford Street offerings, which were quite amazing. Besides the lights above the street which everyplace else had, they included some optional choices to layer entire buildings in lights, which was quite exceptional.
I hope this day finds you well and you are enjoying the company of your nearest and dearest. These images of the Xmas Tree are once more part of the holiday decorations in Covent Garden in London. If they look crisper or more in focus than some of the earlier pictures, its because my friend Jenn has much better cameras and a lot more practice than I do; these are her work.
What Santa would leave Rudolph behind on Xmas Eve? You can see the building behind it to give it a sense of scale, but to make it more obvious I am including a daytime snap with people all around. Jenn took the night time shot, I took the daytime. Besides her having the better cameras, there wasn’t any fog at night. I had always thought the scenes of foggy London streets in TV and Movies was done for effect with dry ice; not so much, it turns out.
One of the movies hitting the big screen this week is a remake of the classic 47 Ronin. While I am not sure how Keanu Reeves ended up starring in a Japanese Historical Epic Chushingura, it looks like a good addition to a true story that has been done as kabuki, bunraku, stage plays, films, novels, and television shows, not once, but many times each. The historical incident at the core of this tale took place in 1700’s Japan, and it is probably the single best known and most often retold story in Nihongo (that’s Japanese to you and me). The other choice this week is also a remake of an old film (get some new ideas, Hollywood!), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which looks like they may have done justice to the James Thurber story. Even though there isn’t anything original out this week, it looks like they have done a world class job on each of them, so I will have to be in the theater for both.