A week in Bloomington Indiana

This is just a hodge-podge of impressions and news-bits from the last week. Mostly photos though. Today's been the first day that the temperature's fallen below 80 (F), I reckon. It's been hot and sunny - and mostly quite sticky, with the odd thunderstorm; more storms are supposed to be on the way. I'm staying at the Indiana Memorial Union - a vast, rambling c.1900 'castle-effect' building, supposedly one of the largest students' unions in the world; it includes a strange mix of mock Scottish Baronial style common-rooms, Starbucks and Burger Kings, conference rooms, canteens, shops, and a 300-room hotel. Its very convenient: right in the middle of what is a lovely campus: very green, with a rolling, meadow-style stretch of grass and woods and flowers and babbling streams right through the middle. Most buildings are c. 1900, but there's also a vast Art Gallery designed by Pei (as in Louvre pyramids), and various others striking additions. My research is at the Lilly Library - not the main library (which is vast), but a specialist rare-book and manuscript library; you can see it behind the fountains. I've got a bit of a routine. I don't eat at the hotel, because all the catering is outsourced to outlets such as Burger King and Starbucks; so I go to various places around downtown. The picture is of one of them: Soma Cafe (for my coffee) - and upstairs, The Laughing Planet, which is a bit vegan, but OK. At lunchtime I just head out of the Lilly Library, past the fountains, and into the Art Gallery, and get a coffee and bun from its cafe, take it out and eat/drink by the fountain. I try and keep this to just 20 minutes, because I'm panicking about quite how much material I've got to get through before the end of next Tuesday. It's all fascinating: hundreds and hundreds of letters to and from Lance Sieveking (BBC producer, 1920s-1950s) - from the Front in WW1, when he was a prisoner, etc. Very difficult not to get distracted and lost in the whole period. But I've only looked at correspondence from 1897 to 1919 so far - and have another 50 years to go. Finally evenings. I tend to get back to the Memorial Union at about 6.15pm, and then have about two hours of work emails to do; then its emails or skype back home, and out to find something to eat. (This evening - Tuesday - it was chicken with lime, beansprouts and peas, at a cafe specialising in local organic food: very nice, though eating out all the time is expensive, cumulatively). After supper, it's tended to be marking, marking, marking so far - but that finished last night, so now I can have a couple of hours to catch up on other stuff... like doing this. Maybe do one more blog before I leave. I'm also due to meet up with some faculty and research students doing media here who want to chat.

Walking around New York

Saturday 24th April. A trip into New York for a chance to do a little more exploring on foot. No culture this time, just wandering about in the sunshine, visiting a few bookstores, cafes, interesting-looking shops. After getting out on 42nd Street, I walked to Bryant Park, which is a lovely sunny, leafy large square where lots of people hang-out quietly eating, drinking, reading. From there, I walked slowly downtown along bits of Broadway and 6th Avenue, past the Flatiron district and into Greenwich Village - which appeared much nicer in the sunshine than when I first scurried through in the March storms, especially in the area all around New York University. A few shops that you would have really enjoyed wandering around, including 'ABC Carpets and Homes', which, despite its name, didn't have carpets, but did have the most extraordinary chandeliers and giant wood-carvings on sale, along with other gob-smackingly expensive trinkets in general; there was also a small 'Conran Shop' franchise in one corner of the shop for those on a tight budget. I only a 'spent a penny' in ABC. But I did see a dog in a bag (lots of dogs, Morgan). Then a cafe for Turkey Chilli soup, and on southwards, further into Noho then Soho. Unfortunately the bookstore I was aiming for was shut early for a party, but there was lots of other stuff to look at. Extraordinary numbers of the young, glamourous and wealthy. Plus, of course, pennyless down-and-outs, desperate and hungry. Everything was phenomenally expensive. Even my afternoon coffee at a New York University hang-out was about £4. Walked back up midtown as it was just starting to get dark - stopping off to catch a jazz band playing in Union Square (play the video below) - and caught a train from Grand Central which got me back to New Haven about 10pm. Today, Sunday, was meant to be all about work. But I was invited out for lunch - to Alice and Frank Prochaska, historians at Yale about to move to Oxford. Very nice. Since then, I've been working on my talk for Tuesday, plus packing up a few books to go home in the post. Its starting to feel as if I'm almost getting ready to go...

An afternoon in Manhattan

Sunday 18th April. A train trip to Grand Central Station in New York - just under two hours from New Haven. Straight to MoMA. The star attraction at the moment is Marina Abramovic's show - part of which consists of the artist herself (dressed in a long, flowing, blood-red robe) sitting at a table in a large floodlit space, very still - and you can queue to take a turn sitting opposite her to stare back; part of her show also consists of completely nude actors standing very close together so that you have to squeeze (really squeeze) between the very narrow gap between them in order to get from one gallery to the next. I observed it all from a comfortable distance. Then headed off to see the permanent collection - just the usual motley bunch of Picassos and Matisses - plus an enormous exhibition of Henri Cartier-Bresson photographs. There was time for meatballs in one of MoMA's achingly trendy cafes (run, incidentally, by the same person who runs the Shake Shack - see earlier blog posting). Afterwards, I decided to be brave and take the lift to the 67th floor of the Rockefeller Centre - the 'Top of the Rocks', which, post 9-11 is, I think, the highest viewing platform in NYC and has the advantage of allowing you to look at the Empire State Building. I didn't throw-up. Though that might be partly because I stood well back from the edge. In fact, it was difficult to get a sense of how high up you actually were until you noticed how very, very far below the streets were and how very, very small the yellow taxis were. After the Top of the Rocks, I thought my tourist trail wouldn't be complete unless I faced Times Square - which is glamourously brash and 'electric' above head height and pretty tacky and unpleasant at ground level. By then, it was getting dark, so time to head back to Grand Central Station and a train back home. Packed - a Yankees game apparently. Tomorrow, the start of another working week. It's already difficult to believe that a few hours ago I was actually in New York and experiencing the iconic stuff there for myself. How do you 'fix' that kind of experience in your mind? (Post-script: woken last night by the loo making funny grinding noises again, even though it's been 'fixed').

Sunday Culture Fix

I didn't get to Boston yesterday, because I had a backlog of work to do at the apartment. I did get out for dinner, though: to the house in the country of Jay Winter, a Professor of History here whose field is World War I and its impact on twentieth century life. There were six other guests, including two who were at St. Catherine's College, Oxford in the 1960s as Rhodes Scholars, a Mexican sociologist, and the retired Rector of a university in Austria. Interesting discussions about war, the BBC, silence, cruelty to animals, and other topics. Today (Sunday), is mostly a work day, too. But it's been quite sunny outside, and I needed a break. I've also been trying not to put too much pressure on the dodgy loo here in the apartment. So I've been looking for a suitable location to do 'what needs doing'. The ideal place turned out to be the Yale Art Gallery. As you can see from the pictures, it's got a fantastic permanent collection: Pollocks, Rothkos, Van Goghs, Monets. Warhols, etc. But - and this is just as important - it's got clean, powerful, fully-working loos.

Psycho Loo

I awoke this morning to Armageddon in the bathroom. The apartment has an 'electric loo'. That means it makes a reasonably gentle grinding noise every time you flush it. Except last night. Then it made slightly more of a juddering noise than usual - and proceeded to keep half-waking me up by repeating this at intervals through the night. In the morning, I awoke to find the loo overflowing with water - water which I shall here politely describe simply as 'discoloured'. The floor was wet and stinking. An electric malfunction? A blockage? No idea, but it involved waking-up the owners and having to stand by, humiliated, as they proceeded to repair the damage with a vast number of towels, plungers, etc. A plumber was later called, but didn't arrive. So none of us know if the loo's been fixed or not, or whether it just had a momentary seizure last night. In either case, I now feel 'tentative' about my bodily functions, to say the least. I stopped off for some extra bananas on the way back from the library, in the hope that I can keep everything inside until I get back to the UK. I spent most of the day in a slightly darkened reading-room, avoiding the rain (the weather's changed again).But I have to admit to being a bit distracted. Finally, just as I arrived back at the apartment I heard voices singing 'Happy Birthday!' from the owners' place. I wonder if whoever's birthday it was had the breakfast they'd been hoping for this morning. My guess is, probably not.

Heatwave

A short entry. It's been a hot, sticky day. The TV news says it's been the warmest day in Connecticut since 1929 - with temperatures hitting 93 F just a few miles north of here. It was probably a few degrees cooler here near the shoreline, but only a few, certainly in the 80s. Trying to work in the reading room at the Beinecke was tricky, since the air-condition wasn't working, and it got progressively more oven-like as the day progressed. The doors onto the outside courtyard can't be opened, presumably because one of us might be tempted to run away with the Gutenberg Bible in our sweaty hands. I'm now back at the apartment. And - hurrah - a new internet connection's been hard-wired in. It works. Hence the update. Also: a package waiting for me with some Easter chocolates from Oxford, only ever so slightly melted. Thank you so much! Tomorrow, I have to give a brief talk to other researchers and librarians about my work; nothing too strenuous, just a few ad hoc minutes.

A New Routine

It's still warm and (mostly) sunny in New Haven, with temperatures in the 70s. Since the wi-fi at the apartment has all but disappeared, I've tried a new routine, which involves using the wi-fi in local cafes. On the way to the Beinecke Library I pass a cafe called 'Koffee' - seen here. So, at about 8am each morning I call in at Koffee and have a coffee. Which then entitles me to an hour online. I use it to catch-up on emails and the BBC and Guardian websites in order to find out what's going on the world (you can't really discover that by watching TV or listening to the radio). And that takes me to 9am, when the Beinecke opens. Between 9am and 5.30 (or 6pm: the precise duration depends on my stamina) I'm working in the reading room at the Beinecke - which is plush and quiet, though quite warm and a bit airless. I usually take a break at about 12.45, have a walk through the campus and find somewhere for a sandwich. On the way back 'home', I call in at Koffee again (I'm there now), and do some more online business - e.g. downloading essays to mark, draft chapters of dissertations to comment on, bits of admin. - for about an hour. Then perhaps I pick up some food for the evening-meal at a local shop (which is very expensive, at least if you want fresh ingredients). I get back to the apartment at about 7pm, then have the evening to work on the radio-scripts, with a break for cooking. That, I think, will be my default routine. But it will be nice to break it every now and then. I worked last weekend, so I'm tempted to have this coming Saturday off and catch the train to Boston. Until then, though, its mostly just me at the Beinecke.