THEME OF THE MONTH MAY 2006: COWS, IMMENSITY, AND THINGS BOVINE
Here it is, as very warily promised, my next installment of that which is now justifiably called a monthly feature (and umm..I apologize in advance; it's a sentimental time of year):
THEME OF THE MONTH MAY 2006: COWS, IMMENSITY, AND THINGS BOVINE
On Immensity
I, as an English-speaking human, have the unfortunate habit of taking an adjective and repeating it just up until the point at which I am constantly conscious of the fact that that adjective worms its way into 94% of all sentences I utter. When that realization becomes too much to bear, I will let everyone in my life know that I am self-aware enough to know that if my adjective of choice were a piece of fruit I'd been juicing, I would currently be grinding the sinewy pulp of my hand into the soggy remains of some lemon rind. That admission will then make it mentally okay for me to carry on repeating said hypothetical adjective until I'm left with a mere stump on the end of my shoulder where my arm might have been if I had used my vocabulary effectively. Last month's repetitive word was DELIGHTFUL, and this month's word, to a slightly lesser degree, has been IMMENSE. Everything this month has been IMMENSE or at the very least described as such. More importantly, however, the word IMMENSE describes the actual physical nature of our real theme of the month: Cows.
On Cows
Cows haven't been omnipresent in this month the way spies were last month (or perhaps the way that they are omnipresent for those of you who go to school on cow farms), but there are two major instances and one immense night that make their presence significant enough to be thematic. We will begin with the most obvious occurrence: The Edinburgh Cow Parade. This month, dozens of painted cow sculptures have appeared all throughout the city for visual collection, general amusement, and (of course) charity. They are EVERYWHERE.
In front of churches.
At the Cinema.
And everywhere you turn, especially when you're wandering the city drunk.
The only place you can't find a cow in this city at the moment is on the Cowgate, that iniquitous avenue off of which I've been living these nine months. This month is the ideal month during which to talk about the Cowgate though, as it is the final month in which I'll be living here.
The Cowgate was my first concrete association with the city of Edinburgh. Before I'd even been here, before I'd left the homeland for this year of unknown wonder, I had that name on a piece of paper, a specific location associated with my impending future. My first memory of having a sense of place here is that very first Saturday, walking down the stairs from Uni toward it after picking up my Freshers' Week Pass, flanked by the English people whose names I was still struggling to remember. For weeks, that scaffolding draped in a blue banner was my landmark; I saw it and I knew I was home.
The Cowgate itself is so strange; if you look up at the pointed rooftops as the street curves away into the grassmarket, it is gloriously beautiful, yet if you look in front of your face, it's generally shady as fuck and scattered with shards of glass. You can always hear music here, always hear drunk people singing from four in the afternoon until five in the morning. There are always costumed parties stumbling along, out of bars, running from the rain, and every night without fail there is a great CRASH of someone falling over and breaking three glass bottles at once. The other week, when Elizabeth was here, we went on a ghost tour, and to get from one ghost story to another, we had to walk along the Cowgate a bit, and the guide warned the group jokingly "we're walking along the Cowgate now; don't talk to anyone, avert your eyes, and you'll be fine." The people-watching is fantastic; we've seen entire fit football (soccer) teams walking down the road in a line for us to drool over; we've had cheesy musical wars out the windows with our neighbors -- they'd blast Bob Marley, so we'd stick the iPod speakers out the window, and stomp on the floor as if to scream "How do you like the Backstreet Boys, bitches?" Last Friday night (which we'll get to imminently), my dearest flat mate Charlotte and my import American, Elizabeth were leaning out of our window, drunk, screaming at some equally drunk guy down on the street to "take it all off!" (though I'm not sure he ever did); I've seen people get arrested in front of my window, and I've spent entire nights watching people get turned away from the club across the street for wearing sneakers. It is so LOUD and so lively, so sketchy, yet so wonderful and I LOVE it more than any place I've ever known. I just feel like things HAPPEN on the Cowgate; Scotland's first printing press was on this street (not the most impressive superlative I know, but I am living in literary history; this is what I'm HERE for). I'm living on four metres of historically-rich ruins which isn't everything, but it's more exciting than being kind of near a sign that says "Benjamin Franklin may have flown a kite here."
Most essential, perhaps, is the fact that I've spent the first year of MY life on the Cowgate. Dave Eggers has this theory (expounded in Heartbreaking Work, I believe) in which he states that his life as a minor was not really his life at all, but his parent's life. I've kind of always agreed/identified with that theory. For, when I was born, that wasn't my life so much as a major event in that of my parents, and the places I lived, the things I did, they shaped me, but they weren't mine, so much as my parents; my whole life was a mere extension of theirs because they had created me and they had dedicated their lives to molding and maintaining me. While I am still supported by my parents financially, for the first time in my life, I feel like I'm actually doing something that I can call absolutely my own, that I can rightfully consider part of my life; I am finally in a place that I chose to live doing something that I chose to do, and the hub of all that activity has been the Cowgate.
The Cowgate is, in many ways, representative of this year as a whole, and much of what I've learned this year was to just LET GO, to say yes, to stop over-analyzing the significance of everything before I do it (the analysis now comes after the fact, and life is much more enjoyable for it), and just to live. Thus, I no longer have ideological problems with listening to cheesy music if its catchy and I like it; I no longer have problems with dancing -- I can look ridiculous, I don't care; if the posters on the wall in the living room are arranged chaotically, that's okay -- I now know I'm not an interior designer, and my decor doesn't have to be so SERIOUS; I eat vegetables, I'll admit to having read certain series of fantasy fiction, I'll act like a complete five-year-old, and I'll drink every afternoon, morning, and night I can afford to do so because I am a Fresher and that's what Freshers do, and it's okay to do what everyone else is doing purely because I enjoy it. I feel as though my ability to do these things stems from the fact that I no longer have to align myself in opposition to my surroundings; if I don't hate my location, and if I don't despise the people with whom I am constant contact, then I don't have to make such a point to be different from them, and consequently, I don't have to act in such a vile fashion. On a mostly fabricated literary level, the contrast between what the Cowgate used to be (rich, opulent home to high society) and what it is now (shady drinking grounds for students) nicely parallels the way I've let my rigid, idealistic side slide into something more fun. Similarly, the juxtaposition of the more squalid elements (dodgy bars, etc.) with the more fabulous elements (Europe's largest collection of stained glass, and great boutiques) exhibits the balance I feel I've achieved.
The Cowgate in all its glory:
On Immensity and Cows
We've all been quite sad, these past few weeks, that first year was ending, that we were all leaving the Cowgate to move home, and that when we returned next year it would probably be to somewhat less constant frivolity, higher standards, and harder work. So when we went out last Friday night (tragically, two of the flat mates weren't present, but Elizabeth was which, while not compensation, is a much-appreciated benefit) for our farewell to both First Year and our additional American companion, we wanted it to be fitting of the year that we'd had; in short, we wanted it to be unforgettably amazing.
My first real clubbing experience ( as mentioned previously) was with my flat mate Steph, her brother, and some of his friends (most of whom I've met seldom since) at our friendly neighbourhood club around the corner (on the Cowgate!), Faith. On Friday, for our last night out as Freshers, we came full circle and ended up right back where we began (accidentally of course).
It had been our intention to go to Why Not, which is the place to go as a student on a Friday because, not only is it pretentious and fabulous, but they give you a free pitcher on entry. For those reasons combined with the fact that hardly any students had any exams left, there was a queue halfway down the street at 10:30 when we arrived. So, we thought "Faith is doing 2 for 1 drinks tonight and it's within stumbling distance of our flat...LET'S GO!" And we did.
(and I downed seven drinks at which point I thought to myself,"maybe I should slow down")
And we were all there like it was Freshers' Week all over again, except this time I had nine months of Cowgate drinking behind me, and two JDs didn't kill me; this time, we had the Elizabeth, and Charlotte, and the dance floor was full.
Full of chavs from the '80s much to Elizabeth's shock and disgust, but full nonetheless:
This time around, however, we were drinking champagne.
Though perhaps we didn't need any more to drink.
But we were drinking and we were happy.
When we left, we decided that instead of stumbling around the corner home, we should walk half way across the city to Steph's brother's flat where we had left the vodka earlier. This is when we had our statue-climbing marathon, which began with the Cow above, but continued with the random giant limb statues (hand and foot respectively) outside of a church.
On our way back from the flat, we stopped on the steps of that church for chips and cheese. Elizabeth looks appropriately demonic.
We also, for some inadvisable reason, decided it would be fun to pole dance; I, however, remember being concerned that we didn't have a Tyra Banks pole dancing instructional video and could not, therefore, pole dance properly.
We also had fun with this minging mask Charlotte found on the ground, as in the next photo where Steph and I are having a spy vs. spy shootout from behind trees; I told you we were five.
At home, we continued drinking in hopes that we would still be drunk at 6:00am when the infamous Penny Black's opens and serves alcohol.
We were determined to make it because, if we couldn't do it as Freshers, we probably never would. Let me end your suspense now and tell you that we did, in fact, make it to Penny Black's for 6:00am drinks.
And at that point, it was totally obvious that we'd been drinking for the past thirteen hours.
We were, however, chatted up by mingers nonetheless. That fifty-something guy I mentioned, the one who asked me to help him prove to his friends he wasn't gay by allowing him a kiss, he was wearing a SUIT and playing CHESS. And this other guy, a Scottish one who, apparently, smelled and wouldn't leave us alone, when he realized that Elizabeth and I were Americans, he promptly asked, "Do you live in a caravan?" to which we actually replied, "yes, and it's stock-piled with bibles." Perfect ending to a perfect year. We came back to the Cowgate after our IMMENSE evening and collapsed.
On How the Immense Turns Quickly Bovine
Bovine, in addition to meaning "relating to cows" also means "sluggish and dull" which is what these past few days have been. Recovering from hangovers, walking past cow statues, saying goodbye as everyone leaves and as I prepare to leave myself. I don't want to go, not even for the summer, but since I know I have to, I want to get it over with; there's nothing left for me to do here, no money left for me to spend, not even any closure to attain, everything has wrapped up perfectly, and I still have six days on the Cowgate.
THEME OF THE MONTH MAY 2006: COWS, IMMENSITY, AND THINGS BOVINE
On Immensity
I, as an English-speaking human, have the unfortunate habit of taking an adjective and repeating it just up until the point at which I am constantly conscious of the fact that that adjective worms its way into 94% of all sentences I utter. When that realization becomes too much to bear, I will let everyone in my life know that I am self-aware enough to know that if my adjective of choice were a piece of fruit I'd been juicing, I would currently be grinding the sinewy pulp of my hand into the soggy remains of some lemon rind. That admission will then make it mentally okay for me to carry on repeating said hypothetical adjective until I'm left with a mere stump on the end of my shoulder where my arm might have been if I had used my vocabulary effectively. Last month's repetitive word was DELIGHTFUL, and this month's word, to a slightly lesser degree, has been IMMENSE. Everything this month has been IMMENSE or at the very least described as such. More importantly, however, the word IMMENSE describes the actual physical nature of our real theme of the month: Cows.
On Cows
Cows haven't been omnipresent in this month the way spies were last month (or perhaps the way that they are omnipresent for those of you who go to school on cow farms), but there are two major instances and one immense night that make their presence significant enough to be thematic. We will begin with the most obvious occurrence: The Edinburgh Cow Parade. This month, dozens of painted cow sculptures have appeared all throughout the city for visual collection, general amusement, and (of course) charity. They are EVERYWHERE.
In front of churches.
At the Cinema.
And everywhere you turn, especially when you're wandering the city drunk.
The only place you can't find a cow in this city at the moment is on the Cowgate, that iniquitous avenue off of which I've been living these nine months. This month is the ideal month during which to talk about the Cowgate though, as it is the final month in which I'll be living here.
The Cowgate was my first concrete association with the city of Edinburgh. Before I'd even been here, before I'd left the homeland for this year of unknown wonder, I had that name on a piece of paper, a specific location associated with my impending future. My first memory of having a sense of place here is that very first Saturday, walking down the stairs from Uni toward it after picking up my Freshers' Week Pass, flanked by the English people whose names I was still struggling to remember. For weeks, that scaffolding draped in a blue banner was my landmark; I saw it and I knew I was home.
The Cowgate itself is so strange; if you look up at the pointed rooftops as the street curves away into the grassmarket, it is gloriously beautiful, yet if you look in front of your face, it's generally shady as fuck and scattered with shards of glass. You can always hear music here, always hear drunk people singing from four in the afternoon until five in the morning. There are always costumed parties stumbling along, out of bars, running from the rain, and every night without fail there is a great CRASH of someone falling over and breaking three glass bottles at once. The other week, when Elizabeth was here, we went on a ghost tour, and to get from one ghost story to another, we had to walk along the Cowgate a bit, and the guide warned the group jokingly "we're walking along the Cowgate now; don't talk to anyone, avert your eyes, and you'll be fine." The people-watching is fantastic; we've seen entire fit football (soccer) teams walking down the road in a line for us to drool over; we've had cheesy musical wars out the windows with our neighbors -- they'd blast Bob Marley, so we'd stick the iPod speakers out the window, and stomp on the floor as if to scream "How do you like the Backstreet Boys, bitches?" Last Friday night (which we'll get to imminently), my dearest flat mate Charlotte and my import American, Elizabeth were leaning out of our window, drunk, screaming at some equally drunk guy down on the street to "take it all off!" (though I'm not sure he ever did); I've seen people get arrested in front of my window, and I've spent entire nights watching people get turned away from the club across the street for wearing sneakers. It is so LOUD and so lively, so sketchy, yet so wonderful and I LOVE it more than any place I've ever known. I just feel like things HAPPEN on the Cowgate; Scotland's first printing press was on this street (not the most impressive superlative I know, but I am living in literary history; this is what I'm HERE for). I'm living on four metres of historically-rich ruins which isn't everything, but it's more exciting than being kind of near a sign that says "Benjamin Franklin may have flown a kite here."
Most essential, perhaps, is the fact that I've spent the first year of MY life on the Cowgate. Dave Eggers has this theory (expounded in Heartbreaking Work, I believe) in which he states that his life as a minor was not really his life at all, but his parent's life. I've kind of always agreed/identified with that theory. For, when I was born, that wasn't my life so much as a major event in that of my parents, and the places I lived, the things I did, they shaped me, but they weren't mine, so much as my parents; my whole life was a mere extension of theirs because they had created me and they had dedicated their lives to molding and maintaining me. While I am still supported by my parents financially, for the first time in my life, I feel like I'm actually doing something that I can call absolutely my own, that I can rightfully consider part of my life; I am finally in a place that I chose to live doing something that I chose to do, and the hub of all that activity has been the Cowgate.
The Cowgate is, in many ways, representative of this year as a whole, and much of what I've learned this year was to just LET GO, to say yes, to stop over-analyzing the significance of everything before I do it (the analysis now comes after the fact, and life is much more enjoyable for it), and just to live. Thus, I no longer have ideological problems with listening to cheesy music if its catchy and I like it; I no longer have problems with dancing -- I can look ridiculous, I don't care; if the posters on the wall in the living room are arranged chaotically, that's okay -- I now know I'm not an interior designer, and my decor doesn't have to be so SERIOUS; I eat vegetables, I'll admit to having read certain series of fantasy fiction, I'll act like a complete five-year-old, and I'll drink every afternoon, morning, and night I can afford to do so because I am a Fresher and that's what Freshers do, and it's okay to do what everyone else is doing purely because I enjoy it. I feel as though my ability to do these things stems from the fact that I no longer have to align myself in opposition to my surroundings; if I don't hate my location, and if I don't despise the people with whom I am constant contact, then I don't have to make such a point to be different from them, and consequently, I don't have to act in such a vile fashion. On a mostly fabricated literary level, the contrast between what the Cowgate used to be (rich, opulent home to high society) and what it is now (shady drinking grounds for students) nicely parallels the way I've let my rigid, idealistic side slide into something more fun. Similarly, the juxtaposition of the more squalid elements (dodgy bars, etc.) with the more fabulous elements (Europe's largest collection of stained glass, and great boutiques) exhibits the balance I feel I've achieved.
The Cowgate in all its glory:
On Immensity and Cows
We've all been quite sad, these past few weeks, that first year was ending, that we were all leaving the Cowgate to move home, and that when we returned next year it would probably be to somewhat less constant frivolity, higher standards, and harder work. So when we went out last Friday night (tragically, two of the flat mates weren't present, but Elizabeth was which, while not compensation, is a much-appreciated benefit) for our farewell to both First Year and our additional American companion, we wanted it to be fitting of the year that we'd had; in short, we wanted it to be unforgettably amazing.
My first real clubbing experience ( as mentioned previously) was with my flat mate Steph, her brother, and some of his friends (most of whom I've met seldom since) at our friendly neighbourhood club around the corner (on the Cowgate!), Faith. On Friday, for our last night out as Freshers, we came full circle and ended up right back where we began (accidentally of course).
It had been our intention to go to Why Not, which is the place to go as a student on a Friday because, not only is it pretentious and fabulous, but they give you a free pitcher on entry. For those reasons combined with the fact that hardly any students had any exams left, there was a queue halfway down the street at 10:30 when we arrived. So, we thought "Faith is doing 2 for 1 drinks tonight and it's within stumbling distance of our flat...LET'S GO!" And we did.
(and I downed seven drinks at which point I thought to myself,"maybe I should slow down")
And we were all there like it was Freshers' Week all over again, except this time I had nine months of Cowgate drinking behind me, and two JDs didn't kill me; this time, we had the Elizabeth, and Charlotte, and the dance floor was full.
Full of chavs from the '80s much to Elizabeth's shock and disgust, but full nonetheless:
This time around, however, we were drinking champagne.
Though perhaps we didn't need any more to drink.
But we were drinking and we were happy.
When we left, we decided that instead of stumbling around the corner home, we should walk half way across the city to Steph's brother's flat where we had left the vodka earlier. This is when we had our statue-climbing marathon, which began with the Cow above, but continued with the random giant limb statues (hand and foot respectively) outside of a church.
On our way back from the flat, we stopped on the steps of that church for chips and cheese. Elizabeth looks appropriately demonic.
We also, for some inadvisable reason, decided it would be fun to pole dance; I, however, remember being concerned that we didn't have a Tyra Banks pole dancing instructional video and could not, therefore, pole dance properly.
We also had fun with this minging mask Charlotte found on the ground, as in the next photo where Steph and I are having a spy vs. spy shootout from behind trees; I told you we were five.
At home, we continued drinking in hopes that we would still be drunk at 6:00am when the infamous Penny Black's opens and serves alcohol.
We were determined to make it because, if we couldn't do it as Freshers, we probably never would. Let me end your suspense now and tell you that we did, in fact, make it to Penny Black's for 6:00am drinks.
And at that point, it was totally obvious that we'd been drinking for the past thirteen hours.
We were, however, chatted up by mingers nonetheless. That fifty-something guy I mentioned, the one who asked me to help him prove to his friends he wasn't gay by allowing him a kiss, he was wearing a SUIT and playing CHESS. And this other guy, a Scottish one who, apparently, smelled and wouldn't leave us alone, when he realized that Elizabeth and I were Americans, he promptly asked, "Do you live in a caravan?" to which we actually replied, "yes, and it's stock-piled with bibles." Perfect ending to a perfect year. We came back to the Cowgate after our IMMENSE evening and collapsed.
On How the Immense Turns Quickly Bovine
Bovine, in addition to meaning "relating to cows" also means "sluggish and dull" which is what these past few days have been. Recovering from hangovers, walking past cow statues, saying goodbye as everyone leaves and as I prepare to leave myself. I don't want to go, not even for the summer, but since I know I have to, I want to get it over with; there's nothing left for me to do here, no money left for me to spend, not even any closure to attain, everything has wrapped up perfectly, and I still have six days on the Cowgate.