LondonTown the Third: In which I ignore all history but U.S. history, shun shopping malls, and gawk at celebrities...Am I still in London?

Woke up this morning a bit groggy, but there are miles to go before I sleep...

On the way to the British Museum (of Plundered Booty), I discovered that I'm all over London.

Anyways, here it is:
Impressive, isn't it? I decided not to spend too much time in this (enormous) place, partly to save my feet but mainly because I wasn't sure how long I could walk around this trophy room of colonial genocide before it ruined my day.
...rather than carnage. Sorry, but if we start forgiving empires their atrocities, we open the door to current despots starting unprovoked preemptive wars in order to obtain natural resources and subsume local culture, all the while claiming history will forgive them...never mind. THAT could never happen.
This grand hallway thingie is pretty cool, though. And if you wanted to learn about any (now-defunct) society or culture, this is the place to do it. I had a little bit of time before the next free tour, so I decided to check out the Native North America wing, and jeezum crow they got a lot of stuff! I mean, more artifacts than they have at the Museum of the American West in Griffith Park! In the gift shop, the (beautiful, rich in detail, and thorough) books about Native Americans were all marked way down (I guess they're not as fashionable as mummies), so I bought up. My suitcase is going to be way too heavy to come home.

Oooh, this thing was cool:
Calaveras depicting the end of the world with missiles. I love it.
This is Mr George Hargreaves ([sic] For some reason the Brits don't like a period after Mr.). He was our tour guide through the Enlightenment exhibition, which is made up to look like a rich young aristocrat, say, George II for example, might have his study. He was full of delightful tales of the British East India Company, disproved scientific theory, and 18th century artifacts. I took a bunch of pictures for the kids, which I won't bore you with.

When Mr Hargreaves said, "Now if you'll just follow me, I'll show you what's probably the most famous rock in the world," I thought it was the Hope Diamond or something, so I got all excited, whipped out my digi and took this:That's when Mr Hargreaves said, "Of course this isn't the real Rosetta Stone, or I wouldn't be able to touch it like this." Guh-hork! That shore is a bigun! I'll bet if'n I tosst it in the swimmin' hole, all the water'd splash right owt!

Here is the real Rosetta Stone:
Mom, maybe you can use it for your Egypt unit.

Covent Garden, with weird Londoner.
My plan next was to visit Covent Garden, to view the markets and have a nice lunch. I also had heard that the London Transport Museum was there. Now here's something I know I would never be able to do if I wasn't alone. Who but me would care about the history of this marvel of public transportation? All week I've been trying to take as many lines and see as many stations as possible, weaving through the tunnels and gates, happy as a mouse in a maze. To be brief, I was excited.
You can probably guess where this is going, but I find the museum and..."Terribly sorry, sir, but we're closed for refurbishment." That's right, laugh it up, motorists.

What was open, however, was the shop, so I bought some London Underground merchandise before walking around Covent Garden.

Which, by the way, is a mall. They don't tell you that in the brochures. Today a waitress told me, "It's just like Faneuil Hall in Boston." I wish I'd known that earlier. I must have walked back and forth across it three times saying to myself, "Is this it?" If you want to shop, or for some reason, have Italian food, Covent Garden is for you. It was not for me. I couldn't even find a chip shop, settling for Garfunkel's. Don't ask. Although I had a delicious cider called Scrumpy Jack. Even now that makes me titter.

But Max, if you hate shopping so much, how come you bought so much crap at all those gift shops? Frankly, I'm as surprised as you are. Buying things is my least favorite thing to do on holiday. But on the other hand, I don't much like buying things in real life either, and here I've budgeted so much to spend, so I might as well spend it on something I can take home, right? Plus most of the stuff will either make my apartment look better or my classroom work better, so . . .

And also I'm not spending nearly as much on booze with the serving stopping at 11.

One thing Covent Garden does have is really good street performers. Again, why don't I mind ponying up in London when at home I freeload? I'd like to say it's because the show is better (and it was, I mean, sexy operatics, street acrobatics, Chaplinesque slapstick) but really it's because it's like play money. Quid? Come on.

After lunch I found myself in a huge intersection with overwhelming architecture that I soon found out was Trafalgar Square. Nelson's Column, however, is wrapped in scaffolding for repair. There wasn't a good picture to be had.

Anyways, on to the Ben Franklin House at 36 Craven Steet. I was really psyched about this one, as it just opened in January (on his 300th birthday) and is the only surviving residence of his in the world.
They've got it set up like a show. Peter Coyote (or rather his voice) plays my favorite founding father, Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) the landlady. There's a costumed actress playing the role of the landlady's daughter, and we shuffle from room to room watching movies, hearing primary source texts, and looking at artifacts. I ate it up. Here she is seconds before informing me that there's no photography allowed.
We all know about the printing, statecraft, electrical experimentation, scientific and musical inventions and the Postal Service. But while he was doing all that, he also found time to publish a newspaper from his boarding-house about the goings-on on his street. That's right, Ben was a blogger!

No gift shop yet. Bad call.

Ghanananians watching their countrymen dash the World Cup hopes of mine, in an electronics store in Tottenham Court Road.

Tonight, rather than the original plan of clubbing in Brixton (I really had no idea where to go, and a former resident warned me against it) I decided to wait in line for what turned out to be the hottest ticket in town. The day I got here I dutifully picked up a copy of TimeOut and flipped through the theatre listings. Turns out I've either seen it (Producers, Les Miz, Phantom, Sunday in the Park with George) or I have zero desire to (We Will Rock You, Billy Elliot, Blue Man Group). So I unknowingly went to two shows in previews. See, I had thought theatre started in London and moved west through New York to L.A. Actually, it starts in New York and spreads out all over the world from there. Avenue Q I got the last available ticket, and for tonight's show I waited in the return line for forty minutes before I got one in the balcony.

Theatre in London, by the way, is nothing like theatre in L.A. The houses are smaller, and the patrons are drunk and noisy and excited. They actually WANT to be there. I can see why, if the only musicals you'd ever seen were in high school or in some place other than NY or London, you would think musical theatre was stupid. But see it packed in, leaning over the stage, and it comes to life.

So what did I see? Rock and Roll, a new play by Tom Stoppard (Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead, Shakespeare in Love, Empire of the Sun(?!)) with Brian Cox (Rushmore, Super Troopers) and Rufus Sewell (Dark City, The Legend of Zorro). It's a historical sweep from the late 60s to the early 90s, revolving around a Czech rock band (The Plastic People of Universe) and a Communist professor's family in Cambridge. Syd Barrett and Vaclav Havel, theory v. practice of my favorite political philosophy, age wigs, what's not to like? (I was a little confused why the actors were speaking with an English accent in some scenes and a Czech one in others, but I figured it out eventually.) And I thought it was cool that the program included a copy of the script.
What you can't make out in this small format is that the lady in the red on the balcony is Natasha McElhone, the luminous big-eyed beauty (and incredibly talented actress) of The Truman Show, Soderbergh's Solaris, and Laurel Canyon. Also in the audience that night was Keanu Reeves and the author himself. Can I pick em?

I have one more day in London to blog, so maybe I'll get to it during the exit procedures for the flat. If not, there will be plenty of time in Monterey. I realized this trip works out great for me (crazy friends trip, followed by solo cultural walking tour of world capital, followed by week of relaxation and inspiration by the beach) but might be somewhat anti-climactic as literature. I'll try to keep it interesting, and you only have to stay tuned for one more week, so...
Tee-hee! Bobbies!