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.

Sunny Saturday

I've been 'silent' because of a lack of internet access at the apartment. A private company supplies the wi-fi, so, obviously, it's not very efficient. I'm now at 'Koffee' a cafe just round the corner, which has 'free' internet access, provided you buy one drink per hour. A photo will follow. News in brief, then. I've started my research at the Beinecke Library. It's plush and peaceful. As sometimes happens with archival material, you never know how good the material in the 'boxes' that are brought to you will be. On day one, it was a bit disappointing: Langston Hughes's luggage labels and bar-bills during his European travels in the 1960s, when I'd been hoping for long letters. But day two was more promising: drafts of speeches, showing his interest in TV and radio as platforms for communicating the ideas of the civil rights movement. And then there were the rantings of 'Bryher', who appears to be esteemed by literary scholars for being connected with all the great modernists. The first letter of hers I looked at boasted of how spiffing it was to 'break' the strike in 1926. So: another spoilt rich person - whose later letters to the BBC suggest she's a pretty narrow-minded intellectual. Give me Langston Hughes any day. I've been outside a bit: hard not to be, given that it's sunny, dry and warm. It really does feel like the beginning of summer on campus, with everyone lounging around on the grass in the quads (are they allowed to do that?). The Beinecke Library was open as usual yesterday (Good Friday) - there seems to be no indication anywhere that it is Easter - but I finished early to have a wander around some of the second-hand bookshops. The second-hand bookshops are great, though since I was over-weight with my luggage allowance coming over, there's a strong self-denying restriction on my book-buying instincts. One reason they're great is that they play good British music. A general rule of thumb here: if any place - bookshop, cafe - has intellectual pretensions, then it plays British music. Finally, the photos: Beinecke in the sunshine; the main quad in the 'Old Campus'; the house where I'm staying - I'm in the 'Library Loft', which is top left as you look at the picture. Heading back there soon, to get on with some work.

Wednesday: becoming a 'Yalie'

I'm now, apparently, a 'Yalie' - having gone through the bureaucratic process of becoming an employee of Yale University- albeit temporarily. The day started early: the house where I'm living is on a nice quiet side street. But next door there's an old school-building being gutted and its metal fixtures are being crushed on site, starting at 7am, possibly every morning. This will guarantee I'll be up and ready to work on time. Breakfast: granola mixed with Scots porridge oats plus fruit. Then outside, where the rain has, finally stopped (last night the local TV channels were whipping themselves up into a frenzy of excitement about the floods - heaviest rain in NYC and Connecticut for over 50 years in the past few days, which I can believe). A walk through the main campus area of Yale to get to the Beinecke Rare Book Library, a massive modernist cube sited bang in the middle of the campus. It looks amazing on the outside, but even more stunning on the inside, because its marble walls are very thin and translucent, giving off a golden glow of natural light. Its million or more books and manuscripts are stored in a giant glass inner cube several stories tall. There's a Gutenberg Bible on display. If you look at the photograph you'll just notice that the reading room, where I'll be spending my time, is actually below ground-level in a sunken courtyard. All pretty swish. I attended an 'orientation meeting', which involved lots of form-filling and very friendly guidance, and then a tour of the facilities I'll be using during the next month - the lockers, coffee-makign facilities, etc. After that, off to the Office of International Students and Scholars, to go through more processing - my health cover checked, visa checked, social security number processing initiated, etc. This left just enough time for two more activities: first, a scurry up Orange Street to a grocery store to get some food supplies in, then, a quick scurry back downtown to have 45-minutes in the Yale Center for British Art before it shut for the day. Amazing collection of paintings, mostly from the 'long eighteenth century'. Not my own favourite period - too many pictures of twerps with their hunting dogs. But some lovely Tudor portraits, and really great to see Hogarths, Turners and others up very close in a very quiet space. I shall return. Tomorrow, though, I get down to work properly, and will be at the Beinecke all day with my first batch of manuscripts...

Tuesday: Off to New Haven

So, time to leave New York. Having arrived at the Bowery Hotel in style (i.e. with all my jackets and underwear about my person), I now left it it style, having blocked the loo. A design-fault, not my fault, I'm convinced. It was an old building. Stormy in Manhattan. So on my taxi-ride to Grand Central Station I watched everyone being blown around and lashed with rain. Hotel doormen were wearing wellington boots. Grand Central was Grand. The coffee was still weak, though. The Metro-North train to New Haven left at 11.07 and got me to New Haven - in even stormier rain - at about 12.50. Another taxi-ride to the Amadeus Healing Center and Guest House, where I let myself in and dragged my luggage up two flights of stairs. I'm in a room called the 'Library Loft' - a lovely open-plan space with bed at one end, kitchen at the other, and a sitting-area in-between. There's a stag's head on the wall. After unpacking, a wander through New Haven to get my bearings - most of the Yale buildings, cafes theatres and shops are just a few minutes easy walk away - though I got soaked through, despite rain-proof coverings, such was the force of the weather. Picked-up copies of local newspapers and city-centre maps, grabbed a bag of groceries, and headed back to the Loft. Now struggling with a slightly wobbly wi-fi connection. Will cook some supper soon, then, tomorrow it's a day of administration: registering at the Beinecke Library and the various other places, to get my visa checked, my social security status cleared, etc.

Wet Monday in Manhattan

Really, really wet day. Started by heading out at 8am to the Lower East Side and finding Katz's Diner - which the guidebooks hail as the original NYC Jewish deli-diner, and which has been featured in various film scenes (e.g. When Harry Met Sally). I noticed a signed photo of FDR there among the many hundreds on the walls. Here's a picture of my fresh-fruit-rich breakfast: a pastrami-on-rye. I think it is fair to say that it has kept me going all day. And it was fantastic. After that, a walk westwards to Soho, then south and east to the Brooklyn Bridge. The original plan was to explore Brooklyn and get a view on the way, but the steady drizzle was getting heavier. On the bridge, you're not supposed to look back until at least half-way across so that you turn-round and get the sudden sight of the sweep of Downtown skyscrapers. And it was worth it, even though today the top half of each building is shrouded in rain-clouds. Got three-quarters of the way across the bridge before the rain got to me, and I turned back in order to get back onto Manhattan and find somewhere for water and coffee (especially water, after that pastrami-on-rye). Must have walked miles and miles, which is the only way I feel I can atone for such an irresponsible breakfast. Stopped off to buy a timed ticket for the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which I'll go to later. And on the way back to the hotel, I noticed that Whole Food Market have their flagship store nearby, so popped in for some fresh fruit. So my overall daily diet will be quite balanced after all. At the hotel early-afternoon: some time to dry-out, check emails, skype home, wish Happy Birthday. Then out again, wandering through my 'local' neighbourhood, the East Village, then a few blocks south to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where some tenement rooms in use by immigrants between the 1860s and the 1930s were open - some left as they were, others restored. Very interesting, and moving. But I was struck by the way it was presented as being about ethnic and racial discrimination: no doubt true, but the conditions struck me as no different to ones probably experienced by millions of working people in industrial areas of Britain during the same period. It's about class, innit.

Sunday afternoon and the Shake Shack

The Shake Shack does all sorts of hot dogs and hamburgers, and shakes - whisked-up custard with all sorts of exotic flavours and extras. The electricity is powered by wind. When you place your order, you're given a little hand-held device a bit like a mobile-phone or an audio-guide. When your order's ready it 'shakes' and lights up so you can sit around while you're waiting, then fetch it from the kitchen. I had a 'Shake-ago' and fries - the fries not using trans-fats, so really now a health food. One thing I didn't order was the 'Pooch-ini' - a 'delicious' snack for your dog, involving peanut-butter, custard, cookies, and other stuff I can't remember. It's not suitable for small dogs, though. After stopping at the Shake Shack, I wandered south into Greenwich Village, which had a fairly retro (i.e. 1970s, 1980s)- rather than buzzy - feel. Then cut across back to East Village, which - though grittier - seemed more 'happening'. The street next to the hotel is tiny, but has about seven alternative theatres and tiny coffee bars. So I'll explore that a bit tomorrow.

Sunday afternoon wanderings

After leaving Central Park - a quick look into the vast Apple Store - it's under the street level, and you get in by going down a glass circular lift. Packed - a place to be on wet Sunday afternoons. No Ipads yet, Morgan: they come next weekend. Then slowly down Fifth Avenue - which had that feel of an archetypal Manhattan street. Iconic and consumerist - simultaneously seductive and repulsive. Also very long. So, once again - especially after walking round the Met and through Central Park, I succumbed to a taxi - to take me to Madison Square Park.... where I came across Shake Shack... about which more in my next post....

Sunday morning

Woke up really early - my body still slightly on UK time, and also with a really persistent headache, made worse by knowing that I'd forgotten to bring Anadin. Had breadfast at the hotel. 'Steel Cut Irish Oats' - which, basically turned-out to be porridge, with sliced bananas and strawberries and a side-dish of crispy bacon washed down with coffee and orange juice. Glanced at the New York Times Sunday edition - outside my bedroom door courtesy of the hotel. Then headed straight out so I could get to the Metropolitan Museum as soon as it opened at 9.30am - though stopping off at a pharmacy to get headache tablets (the choice being irritatingly wide because obviously unregulated, with a random selection of tablet strengths - and I ended up choosing some that made my face go numb within 2 minutes but which certainly had the desired effect of killing-off the headache for the day). Beginning to get a feel for the size of Manhattan and the scale of the map I use - which, in this case meant giving up on my original plan to walk to the Met, and getting a taxi instead (it would have taken hours walking). The Met is absolutely enormous. I started with the Egyptian section, which contained vast numbers of mummies, statues, frescoes, whole tombs with enormous galleries to themselves. Then Medieval, Renaissance, right up to modern and contemporary. Kept getting lost. Lots of famous pictures, of course - Rembrandt self-portrait, Van Gogh self-portrait with straw hat, and irises, Caravaggios, vast numbers of Picassos. etc, plus lots of modern American - Jackson Pollock, etc - and Damien Hirst's 'The Impossibility, etc' - i.e. the pickled shark. Stopped off for a double-espresso in the American Wing cafe. (Strange thing I've notice is that no matter how nice a cafe, even if you're drinking 'in' they still serve all coffees in paper-cups). Other than that, kept going for 4 hours or so, in order to take advantage of being there. Afterwards, out into the gentle drizzle to walk through Central Park - kept getting a little disorientated. Then to Fifth Avenue, where I first of all noticed the mega Apple Store... which I'll tell you about in my next post.

Arrival at The Bowery

The Bowery Hotel is in a 'gritty', but trendy part of NYC - half-way between 'Downtown' proper and Midtown - and sandwiched at the intersection of NOHO, Greenwich Village, East Village and Lower East Side. Inside, it's dark and exotic - with a kind-of turn-of-the-century art-nouveau feel in the Bar. Which, when I arrived (at about 6pm NYC time) was full of very trendy folk - all, I think, quite impressed by my own cutting-edge style (i.e several jackets, pants hanging out of every pocket, etc). The staff also have style - with aggressively emo'd hairdoes. My bedroom's on the twelfth floor - and yes, I do get vertigo if I get up close to my window and look down at the street below. So I concentrate on looking straight ahead at the skyline: no landmarks but a nice New York-y mix of loft-apartments and mini-skyscrapers, dotted with what look like water-towers (but I'm not sure). Lots of sirens and car-horns when the window's open - but it's all part of the background, so I had no trouble falling asleep.

But sleep came only after (a) checking out the mini-bar: wardrobe-sized - and tasty cashew nuts; (b) a wander up Broadway to Union Square and back down via First Avenue - to sniff the territory in the cold. Took twenty minutes to work out how to turn off the lights next to the bed. The TV has over 700 channels. There was nothing worth watching. I know you won't believe me, Morgan, but it's true!

Saturday - arrival in NYC

Arrived at JFK about 3.30 US time... after the trauma of carrying far too much luggage and - in order to reduce the weight of my suitcase by 2kg - having to wear several jackets and shoving various pants, cables, and portable devices into every pocket. Getting through customs, etc was faster than I'd expected - though the baggage reclaim is pretty time-consuming when the conveyor belts are spitting out a Jumbo-jet load of bags. Long queue for official yellow taxis - but worth it for the flate-rate during the ride into Manhattan. First glimpses of the skyline... and eager to get to the Hotel and 'dump' my stuff ;)