CONTORTED PASTA

We're halfway through Second Lockdown here, and everyone is warning of a very difficult winter ahead, but this week I've been thinking about Spring.

My business, such as it is, is online; I am lucky enough to live as a lily of the field on the monthly shower from Patreon and the sunshine of generosity which has given me a low-rent palace. When the pandemic hit, I thought I was more or less lockdown-proof, at least until the economic impacts hit my patrons. What I realised when doing my taxes, though, is that my teaching, which I had thought of as a top-up, actually makes up almost half of my income. I had been teaching in March when Denmark locked down; luckily I managed to finish the class online, but it was difficult both for the students and me, and I realised how untenable this arrangement would be if things continued thus. Last October I was teaching in Switzerland and was supposed to have gone back again this year, but with both countries continually fluctuating on entry/exit/quarantine restrictions, we decided over the summer that making any plans was unwise. As we headed into the 2020/21 academic year, Europe once again became a global COVID epicentre. Things were not looking good for hands-on face-to-face craft tutelage.

This has recently turned around. The Swiss school where I should have been in October has asked me to mentor some of this year's class as they put together their 2D portfolios. And the Danish school emailed to ask if I would like to come back in March. I am ever a pessimist so I don't expect we'll be out of the woods by then, even with a vaccine, but the controls Denmark has in place for entry are very sensible,* and the school has further sensible policies on top of those, so on the assumption they will squash their mink problem in the next four months, I will probably be safer in Denmark than here. And, contrary to expectations, air travel is not a huge risk for transmission. It's just a question of getting onto the plane safely ...

These plans come as my parents are getting confident about their visit in May – they were supposed to have been here last May, but we all know how that went. I have been vocally critical of this confidence, especially given that the two countries involved in this plan are among the worst in the world for COVID response, so my blitheness about flitting off to Denmark two months prior whiffs of hypocrisy. However, the realities are worth considering: On one hand, travelling around some of the worst parts of a very badly affected country, staying in successive accommodations, eating out, seeing sights; on the other, travelling to a very well-managed country, staying in one tightly controlled place, with a limited number of contacts, under strict bubbling protocols. Viborg has been the butt of many animators' jokes for being the most boring place in the world, but the fact it rolls up the sidewalks at 4pm is definitely a point in its favour this time around.

Of course, the big disclaimer hanging over all this, as it has for the last year, is 'subject to cancellation.' The mentoring I will be doing from home so that's fine; if push comes to shove I know I can teach the animation class online, but would rather jump through the hoops to do it onsite. I hope it isn't cancelled outright, as the class is always a highlight of my year.

My main misgiving is that I was planning to start some seeds for the garden in March, and if I'm out of town I won't be able to keep them watered on the sunny windowsill. We may just have to see what headstart I can still give them in April, which will be warmer at least ... While the authorities are warning of a difficult winter pandemic-wise, Nature seems to be warning of difficulty in the more classic sense. We had an extremely fruitful autumn, especially in acorns, which supposedly foretells a hard winter. More notably, a number of spring flowers came around for a second go in October, and the last time this happened was 2011; winter 2011-12 was the hardest in living memory. I love winter and am looking forward to a snowy one in the countryside, but I also live in a draughty uninsulated 500-year-old house, so if it's much below freezing for any extended time, that extra teaching income is going to go right up the chimney ...

*Proof of negative test no more than 72h before arrival, required for entry; quarantine on arrival and test 4 days after; on receiving negative results, cleared to move about freely

After four years of visiting Denmark, I'm finally trying to learn Danish. It hadn't seemed worth the effort before, as I teach in English there, and anyway, how likely was the school to keep inviting me back? Turns out, very likely, and as I like going and feel one ought at least to try to function in the local lingo, I'm starting on it in a more organised fashion than recreationally cross-referencing the Danish and English copy on packaging.

It's fun, and – for a language whose reputation is 'very very difficult' – so far fairly easy. I've also found that a tiny upside of having spent many young years in Utah, where my mum tutted at everyone's 'lazy tongue' when they turned mountain into mou'en and something into sum'm is that I'm taking very naturally to the wide variety of glottal stops that Danish requires of the hapless English speaker. This is not an accident, I think: there was quite a lot of Scandinavian settlement in Utah in the early days,* so I suspect the comfortable habits of the Nordic tongue outlived the taste for fish and minimalist interior design.

I first started trying to learn French so long ago that I've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner with a language; in my first few days with Danish I'm amused to observe that I'm coming up with all sorts of mnemonics which will be completely impractical in a conversational context. But I don't think I'll ever quite shed the impression that, in Danish, a girl is a pigeon (pigen), a boy is a dragon (drengen), a man is a maiden (manden), and a woman – any woman – is a queen! (kvinden)

Perhaps the reputation Danish has for being difficult to learn comes from the way the spoken word hardly resembles the written one – it could give English a run for its money. Pigen is pee'een, drengen is drain, manden is mai'n, and kvinden is kveen-n. The phrase Jeg er en kvinden (I am a woman) sounds more like Yerre kveenn. My first experience of this was when I was talking about words I'd learned off packaging and, in my obsession with Danish bread, one of these was wheat flour – hvedemel. One of the Danes present gave voice to it, and it came out velmee. I pity anyone who's tried to learn it from a book and then arrived in the country; they wouldn't understand a word.

I'm next due to teach at the end of November, and I doubt I'll be the least bit capable of conversation by then, but it'll be interesting to see how my experience of the place changes. I have learned what ikke means at last – it's a negatory – but Duolingo is insistent on the importance of my learning the word for 'plate' which so far I have been completely unable to remember beyond that it starts with a T.

But I know that you find pastries at a place called lagkagehuset, and what is necessary beyond that?

*and quite a lot of skin cancer there now, not coincidentally

I've been wanting to get to the animation festival at Annecy since 2012 when Paperman premiered there, but every year there's been some reason why I can't make it. This year, I made a pact with a friend to book accommodation early so we would have to go, and luckily that paid off. I just returned last night from a week's worth of animation nerdery, architectural beauty, and cheese (so much cheese), and while more will probably be written, here's a quick rundown of a few things I learned:

• The French for 'screening' is séance, a fact I shall treasure forever
• Just because it's in the mountains and by a lake doesn't mean it won't get really, swelteringly, paralyzingly hot
• Annecy is not, as I had been led to believe, a small town. This impression came from people who live in LA, in comparison to which pretty much anything smaller than London is small town.
• However hot Annecy gets, Lyon gets much hotter. I must never go to Lyon.
• Buy your bread before noon
• Unexpected vocabulary differences between French and Québecois: myrtille for bleuet, parking for stationnement
• There are astonishingly few places that will sell you a coffee and a pastry and a place to sit down for an hour or so
• On the other hand, the springwater standpipes everywhere are pretty great

All in all it was a fabulous experience – I don't think I've ever been to a film festival before, nevermind an animated film festival, so was expecting something more along the lines of a comics convention. Something about all coming together to share the experience of films, rather than buy and sell each other's products – and reconnecting with so many people I knew from so many different places – gave it a lovely sort of family reunion atmosphere. An assortment of 'in group' experiences helped that too: shared exasperation for the heat, queuing for screenings (séances!), and little Annecy rituals like throwing paper airplanes at the screen while waiting for the show to start and making fish-popping noises in the darkness between shorts in a programme, but a major one was that everyone had the same song stuck in their head, because this little film played before every event:

Watch on YouTube

There you go, now you're part of the family.

As I'm sure I have stated with enthusiasm here before, one of the highlights of my teaching in Denmark is this particular type of bread they have at the local supermarket bakery. I found it by accident the first time, and ever since, the first thing I do when I get into town is go buy some bread and butter and stuff myself on it, and the last thing I do is get a loaf or two and freeze them so they'd survive the trip in my luggage, and I can have that wonderful pampasbrød for a couple weeks back in England.

The last time I went, they'd stopped making the loaf – it was available in baguette and bun form, but the texture of those is quite different and neither really captured the joy of the original. Luckily, I'd saved the ingredients list – one of the reasons I started learning how to make bread was to recreate this at home – and while it doesn't list proportions, I hope at some point my experience in baking (such as it is) and memory of the Real Thing might combine to get me at least most of the way there.

The little ingredients tag has been floating around my room for long enough, so in my lifelong fight with little bits of paper, I'm copying out the ingredients list here for future reference. If you like baking and want to give it a go, by all means feel free to do so! If pampasbrød could spread around the world, that might be one small counter to all the awfulness these days.

( PAMPASBRØD INGREDIENSER: )

Last week I went on a short walking holiday up to the Norfolk coast with my friend and fabulously talented animator/teacher/graphic novelist Sydney Padua, who had declared it a sketching holiday. I've been hearing from people for years that the Norfolk coast is a lovely place but had never managed to get there myself, so this was a good excuse to make the trip at last.

Sketches and photos together in the photo album below:


NORFOLK

As I say, the Norfolk coast had come highly recommended, but what people mentioned was the wide sweeping seascapes, the dramatic weather, the bird life, the light and air ... what they completely failed to mention, and what might have got me there a lot sooner, is that's where Britain is hiding all its seafood – omigosh, so much amazing seafood, so many tasty pink sea bugs; I got so full on that trip I hardly ate for days afterwards.

A random sampling of promotional cards from the lobby of the central Cambridge cinema:

Le Beaujolais Nouveau Arrive!
Celebrate with us Le Beaujolais Nouveau!
With the "International Jazz Septet"
Price includes: 2 glasses of wine & French nibbles

Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble
Performing music by Philip Glass at the Corn Exchange

The Late Propaganda State
And Why Real Meditation Ain't For Pussies
Steve takes us on an existential journey where he explores growing up in the American 'dream,' his entrance into 'spiritual life,' the ups and downs of enlightenment, and why real meditation isn't for pussies!

Fitz and Will - The Cambridge Cats
Join Fitz and Will on an adventure through the historic streets and colleges of Cambridge to Trinity May Ball, where their curiosity leads them into mischief.

Giamo & I. Pagano: Abstract Revelations
Giamo, a graduate of the Academia di Belle Article di Roma, makes works considered to be 'natural abstract'. I. Pagano trained as a chemist and his work is described as 'gestural abstract'.
Pictured, the latter's piece Covalent Bond

The Imitation Game Giveaway
Solve our crypto challenge for a chance to WIN a pair of cinema tickets to The Imitation Game
(Contest sponsored by a data protection firm)

I think I'll stay.

'The City' is now the collective term for the financial district of London – roughly equivalent to 'Wall Street' in New York. It is called such because it's the original centre of the City of London, back when it had a wall and everything; the centre of gravity has shifted westwards over the centuries, and the City now is almost on the eastern end of 'Central' London. I haven't explored it much, in part because there just aren't any particular attractions there for me the way there are elsewhere, but a good friend who knows a lot more about London invited me for an audio tour of the original coffee shops of the City and I don't turn down an invitation like that.

We started our tour with half-pints at a pub quite near the first coffee shop, in a warren of little alleyways with many other pubs, crawling with financiers (not the pastry kind). The 'City Boy' is the prototypical privileged bourgeois who went to a good school, graduated into a high-paying job, makes more money than he knows what to do with, and all that that implies. There were a couple of them eating lunch on a barrel outside the pub opposite, and I tried to sketch the one wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, because the setting and action contrasted with the sharp suit he was wearing, but it came out looking like he's just done a line of coke. Given the City's reputation it's not entirely implausible, but that's not the situation, I promise ...

There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction—every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and excitement at about a million miles an hour.

– Sylvia Plath

As I recently visited Paris, I had the opportunity to test this in the interest of SCIENCE. While I had to compromise experimental integrity by watching from a side window rather than a caboose, as the train didn't have a caboose, preliminary results indicate that watching Paris recede from a high-speed train is nowhere near as devastating as watching friends fall in love.

On the other hand, I got some good photos while I was there!

( Bienvenue à Paris )

My first visit to London was about the same length of time as this one to Paris, and I hardly count it as a visit now I've got to know the city better, because what can you see of London in two and a half days, especially when one of them is spent entirely within the British Museum? But I felt like I got a lot more out of this trip, in large part because I was visiting an artist who'd lived there for a while and so had the sort of perspective on the city that resonated with mine.

It was unrelentingly beautiful, and unrelentingly Paris, and that I definitely appreciated, but there was something about it that seemed wanting, somehow. It's entirely possible it's just a permutation of my inherent suspicion of beauty as artifice, something ground into me as a goose amongst swans in high school – being immersed in such perfection made me feel a bit of a troll. It's also possible that a lifetime's exposure to British history, literature, and culture makes London's charms easier to unlock and more thick on the ground, and Paris has just as much to offer those who come prepared. But for me, myself, I couldn't help feeling there was something hollow about it, in the same undefinable way as San Francisco – gorgeous, and intellectual, but ... superficial somehow. It made me wonder about the sort of people who fall in love with Paris. Is it just the beauty? There is an awful lot of that to go around, and to Americans especially it's like living in the ideal which some American cities tried for a while to emulate – I got a lot of 'Oh, so this is what they were trying to go for,' walking around. But in the end, while I enjoyed it a lot, I was so happy to get back to London, where the eccentric Victorian façdes and ugly 60s buildings jostle together and make room for people who don't fit the plan. I hadn't realised how affectionate I'd grown towards the muddy mean proletarian Thames, but it's a working river and not Disneyland green, and when I saw it again I wanted to pat it fondly.

So maybe the reason my heart didn't break while watching Paris diminish from the retreating train was because I was heading back to the one I loved, flawed and ugly and falling apart but whose character and soul shone through. There's a comfort for all us trolls.

( Epilogue )

Wa-hey internet, it's time for more photos!

Whilst an unemployed bum, I figured it was best to make the most of my lack of contribution to society, and so took to the rural byways of England with another no-good layabout who happened to be a friend of mine. And though those feet in ancient time walked not on England's mountain green, had there been a reasonable travel package from Jerusalem at the time, they might have enjoyed a ramble in this green and pleasant land.


First up was a leisurely stroll over the South Downs from ( Lewes to Brighton, Inclusive )

Next was a trip through Wind in the Willows country, with a brief side trip to Sleepy Hollow.


Ignore the digger.
( Henley-on-Thames to Hambleden circular )

Next time: anturiaethau yng nghymru! (... which the internet assures me is 'adventures in Wales', in Welsh. Welsh-speakers, please feel free to point and laugh.)

( Sketch dump, sketch dump, roly poly sketch dump )
( Sketch dump, sketch dump, eat it up, yum. )

( In the morning, laughing happy sketch dump )
( In the evening, floating in your soup )

Sketch dump, sketch dump, roly poly sketch dump
Sketch dump, sketch dump, eat it up, yum.


I promise I will draw more things out of my head at some point, I just need to sneak up on them so I don't scare them off.