Well, it's my last night in the UK. Twelve hours from now, I'll already be in the air, heading back to the US of A, stopping in Pennsylvania before returning to wreck havoc on New York City. There are a lot of things I could tell you about right now, as my my brain is buzzing with so many thoughts and feelings and stories from this past year. I thought though that, as a way to narrow it down a bit, I'd tell you a few favourite moments from my magical year in London... a sort of recap before the next adventure begins....
No highlights list of mine would be complete without mentioning the night in Dublin when I crashed a posh 21st birthday party. A fellow female traveller and I had met earlier that week on a tour of Tara and Newgrange. We decided to meet up for an evening out, starting out normally with a dinner and some drinks. We then started wandering through the city, laughing and taking ridiculous pictures with some of the cheesiest of statues... including that tart Molly Malone. We were waking near Temple Bar when we heard an incredible (yes, that's right) piano rendition of Britney Spear's 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' wafting out of what I assumed to a bar... Naturally, we followed it to the source, which turned out to be the very classy foyer of some sort of private club, currently playing host to a birthday party full of very young, very blond party people. Helen and I were the only two brunettes in the bunch, and we quickly attracted a lot of male attention.... unfortunately, it all came from one guy, Colin, who was approximately 65, probably related to the birthday girl, and very very drunk. While we did rebuff his affections, we also did take him up on his offer of free drinks. So, to the unknown birthday girl, hope it was a happy one, and that you got all the blond hairdye you asked for!
Performing at the Battersea Arts Centre has to go on my list as well. Our sort of "Masters showcase" was held there this past May. If you've not been to the BAC, I can't recommend it enough! It's an old town hall building, with character coming out the wazoo, and lots of quirky rooms for performance. By a weird turn of events, I wound up having a room to myself... I veyr very quickly fall in love with the cavernous Council Chambers, with its stripped-down wooden floor and incredible acoustics. Plus, this marked my first international performance, in a piece that I had both created and performed in. A total out and out highlight!
But, performing theatre here isn't the only highlight... I also have been so fortunate to see some gorgeous stuff in the past 365 days. Productions at the Globe and the RSC, opera and ballet at the ENO, edgy work in pub theatres, the Proms at Royal Albert Hall, etc. etc. etc. I really feel in love with the arts scene here in the UK, with particular regard to experimental and envelope-pushing theatre. The performance community here is so rich and diverse. Some of my favorite shows have been Frankenstein at the National Theatre, Oh What a Lovely War at the Greenwich Theatre, Henry IV at the Globe and Krapp's Last Tape with Michael Gambon. I've really been able to see so very much here, and have loved being an audience member for some thought-provoking work.
When I was working for the Flare Festival in Manchester, I spent my last day in town nursing a tremendous hangover, the kind that just punishes for hours and hours and hours. I decided that, in true British fashion, all that I really needed was a good roast dinner. So I asked around, and found a little local pub to chase away my hangover with lots and lots of meat. The barmaid instantly recognized my symptoms, and with an understanding, "oh my poor darling," ordered me a huge roast, never-ending Coca Colas, and a three hour chat. I was introduced to all the regulars, and we all bonded over baskets (yep. baskets!) of Yorkshire puddings. Not only did my hangover disappear, but I had a great afternoon, feeling like I was somehow back in a small town, hanging out with familiar faces.... it was worth almost bursting the button on my trousers on the train home just to have such a cosy afternoon!
In another performance realm, I had the pleasure of seeing a pre-season friendly football match in London as well, which was terrific. I went to see my local team, the Tottenham Hotspurs, play Bilbao. Even though I went by myself, I instantly had friends in my section, namely a grandpa with his two very young grandsons. They taught me all the cheers, told me all about the players, and generally included me in their football revelry. The Bilbao supporters were a lot of fun too, starting a "wave" that made it's way around the grounds five times, and prompting the Tottenham crowd to give them a hearty round of applause. Interestingly, this same evening, the riots broke out in the same neighborhood, just as I was travelling home. It was surreal to have the two experiences so directly juxtaposed.
There are so many other things that have just been incredible this year.... visiting Stonehenge, running into Clive Owen in the checkout line at Whole Foods and chatting to him about pumpkin pie, visiting Paris at Christmas time, climbing the hills of Salzburg, standing in Kilmainham Jail, being my parents' tourguide for a whirlwind week visit, earning my Master's degree and completing a dissertation that I am really proud of, living with fantastic flatmates and making great friends in my class, sitting in the British Library to work and feeling like a part of history... the list goes on and on and on. This year has been the best of my life, and I couldn't be more grateful for this chance to take a chance.
I don't know what the next chapter in all this is, but do stay tuned. That Girl may be coming back stateside, but she's always an International at heart.
Love, Crumpets and Sandwiches with Butter,
TGI
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
"That Girl" is Not a Size Zero...
Or a 2, or a 4, or a 6, or, one some days, not even a size 8. She's curvy, womanly, fuller-figured, natural, buxom, round, soft, thick, flabby, substantial, fat, etc. Use whatever word you like to describe the fact that, if spandex is a privilege and not a right, then she probably should abstain. She likes eating far more than she likes treadmilling. It's unhip to admit that, by there you go. And it's cool. I love my body. That sounds like a warm-and-fuzzy thing to say, but it is honestly true. I like being the way that I am. I don't hate myself. I don't cover up under layers and layers of baggy clothes. I wear clothes I like, in current styles, even though I don't have a flat stomach (and never ever had, nor will ever ever have). And in fact, I like my body so much that I don't mind when a performance calls for revealing a lot of it. Truth is, I feel confident inside my skin, and that's what really matters.
Nevertheless, I've been called a host of incredibly offensive things, because I have the audacity to reveal my imperfect body to the light of day. It seems that, because I feel ok wearing a bikini on the beach at Coney Island, it is also all right for people (generally men) to criticize my choice, and mock my figure. Or, because I don't believe in wearing multiple pairs of Spanx underneath my day-to-day wardrobe, it gives a guy the right to tell me I'm 'tubby' when I turn down giving him my phone number at a pub. It's not my body that bothers people... it's my confidence in my own shape, my own size, my own skin. That unnerves people, I think, and is threatening because it seems to be outside of the norm.
And that "norm" is frightening. I've been following the story of Nancy Upton, a gorgeous and incredibly clever woman who entered American Apparel's recent "The Next BIG Thing" competition, ostensibly a response to media flack stemming from their official comment that plus-sized women "just aren't [their] demographic." That may well be, but to me, this is endemic of a larger problem. This attitude towards "plus size" (which at American Apparel means anything above a size 10 generally -- ridiculous, as the average American woman these days is a 14) feels more like marginalization and a push for invisibility than savvy marketing. It also suggests that I am not a woman, but a "plus size woman," my body shape and weight determining my identity. In the AA contest description, they ask for "bootylicious" models who want to fill out their various spandex wares to send in photos, which will be voted on. The name of the contest and the language and terms that apply to it are mocking, suggesting a divide between the normal current AA consumer, and the giantesses on competitive display. The wording feels so silly that it doesn't surprise me that, when entrant Nancy Upton crafted her submission, she did so with a healthy dose of irony and a wealth of body positivism.
If you're new to this recent event, check out coverage here. Her photos are genius because they both comply to the demands of the contest, and show off Upton's creative mind in tandem with her beautiful body. Yes. These photos of a curvy gal covered in food were probably not what AA anticipated receiving. They are extraordinary because they take they piss not just of a contest looking for girls with plenty of junk in the trunk, but highlight the fact that AA is not truly aiming to cater to a new demographic. Calling girls like me out on our body flaws is a marketing method predicated on self-loathing, and not one I am particularly keen to get on board with. While Upton won the popular vote in this contest, but, as the article above points out, she will not be modelling for the company, because AA wants someone who "truly [exemplifies] the idea of beauty inside and out, and whom we will be proud to have representing our company." Apparently, creativity, sense of humor, body positivism and keen observation skills do not exemplify the mission of American Apparel.
To me, Upton's photos are genius, because she takes a central criticism of larger women in a modern American context and harnesses the power in it to turn it around on the fashion industry. She swims in food, covers herself in it, and gorges on it, making a spectacle of prevalent attitudes conflating curves with gluttony and a lack of self-control. The images are lush, made rich because Upton 'owns' this criticism, and throws it in our face. It's already a mindset propagated by companies like American Apparel, so why not use it to its best advantage. But, the bottom line here is that American Apparel had no intention of taking their own contest seriously. In seeking a "big" model, what they were really asking for was a somewhat-magnified clone of their current modelling stock, not someone who brings intelligence, humor and candor to the camera.
It's too bad that American Apparel feels that stocking clothes in my size is beneath them, as I really would enjoy protesting them. But, sadly, they're just not interested in self-loving fatties like me. Perhaps if I hated my body just a little bit more, I'd be welcome. But, that's just going to happen. Call me any name in the book you like, but you can't diminish my confidence in myself, jiggly bits (of which I have a lot) and all. Belive it or not, American Apparel, body fat percentage has no bearing on my "beauty." Just like the gorgeous Nancy Upton encourages us to believe, we DO INDEED embody beauty inside and out. Take pride ladies.
Love and 7 course dinners!
Nevertheless, I've been called a host of incredibly offensive things, because I have the audacity to reveal my imperfect body to the light of day. It seems that, because I feel ok wearing a bikini on the beach at Coney Island, it is also all right for people (generally men) to criticize my choice, and mock my figure. Or, because I don't believe in wearing multiple pairs of Spanx underneath my day-to-day wardrobe, it gives a guy the right to tell me I'm 'tubby' when I turn down giving him my phone number at a pub. It's not my body that bothers people... it's my confidence in my own shape, my own size, my own skin. That unnerves people, I think, and is threatening because it seems to be outside of the norm.
And that "norm" is frightening. I've been following the story of Nancy Upton, a gorgeous and incredibly clever woman who entered American Apparel's recent "The Next BIG Thing" competition, ostensibly a response to media flack stemming from their official comment that plus-sized women "just aren't [their] demographic." That may well be, but to me, this is endemic of a larger problem. This attitude towards "plus size" (which at American Apparel means anything above a size 10 generally -- ridiculous, as the average American woman these days is a 14) feels more like marginalization and a push for invisibility than savvy marketing. It also suggests that I am not a woman, but a "plus size woman," my body shape and weight determining my identity. In the AA contest description, they ask for "bootylicious" models who want to fill out their various spandex wares to send in photos, which will be voted on. The name of the contest and the language and terms that apply to it are mocking, suggesting a divide between the normal current AA consumer, and the giantesses on competitive display. The wording feels so silly that it doesn't surprise me that, when entrant Nancy Upton crafted her submission, she did so with a healthy dose of irony and a wealth of body positivism.
If you're new to this recent event, check out coverage here. Her photos are genius because they both comply to the demands of the contest, and show off Upton's creative mind in tandem with her beautiful body. Yes. These photos of a curvy gal covered in food were probably not what AA anticipated receiving. They are extraordinary because they take they piss not just of a contest looking for girls with plenty of junk in the trunk, but highlight the fact that AA is not truly aiming to cater to a new demographic. Calling girls like me out on our body flaws is a marketing method predicated on self-loathing, and not one I am particularly keen to get on board with. While Upton won the popular vote in this contest, but, as the article above points out, she will not be modelling for the company, because AA wants someone who "truly [exemplifies] the idea of beauty inside and out, and whom we will be proud to have representing our company." Apparently, creativity, sense of humor, body positivism and keen observation skills do not exemplify the mission of American Apparel.
To me, Upton's photos are genius, because she takes a central criticism of larger women in a modern American context and harnesses the power in it to turn it around on the fashion industry. She swims in food, covers herself in it, and gorges on it, making a spectacle of prevalent attitudes conflating curves with gluttony and a lack of self-control. The images are lush, made rich because Upton 'owns' this criticism, and throws it in our face. It's already a mindset propagated by companies like American Apparel, so why not use it to its best advantage. But, the bottom line here is that American Apparel had no intention of taking their own contest seriously. In seeking a "big" model, what they were really asking for was a somewhat-magnified clone of their current modelling stock, not someone who brings intelligence, humor and candor to the camera.
It's too bad that American Apparel feels that stocking clothes in my size is beneath them, as I really would enjoy protesting them. But, sadly, they're just not interested in self-loving fatties like me. Perhaps if I hated my body just a little bit more, I'd be welcome. But, that's just going to happen. Call me any name in the book you like, but you can't diminish my confidence in myself, jiggly bits (of which I have a lot) and all. Belive it or not, American Apparel, body fat percentage has no bearing on my "beauty." Just like the gorgeous Nancy Upton encourages us to believe, we DO INDEED embody beauty inside and out. Take pride ladies.
Love and 7 course dinners!
Monday, September 12, 2011
"That Girl" Has Just Ten Days Left....
It's very difficult
to find the way to articulate
how this all feels.
It's not that I hate change.
In fact, it's not that at all.
I love flux, shifting, moving from one thing into another.
Staying still scares me, so I'm always moving into a different something.
It is endings that I loathe.
The goodbyes, the finishing, the ending of a fantastic chapter,
with no way of knowing how the next one will start.
When things end, I find myself here.
In this sad little selfish place.
I don't want this year to end.
I want to get married, and see my beloved Apple...
And cuddle my sweet grey kitten.
But I don't want to lose the things I've found,
the life I wasn't sure I wanted until it found me in London.
I want to be an artist,
but not an actress that waits interminably on audition lines
for roles she, if she's honest, doesn't much care about,
and hope desperately for that one in a million chance.
I want to be an artist,
not shoving in stolen seconds of studio time around three part-time jobs
seeing the successful of the city sneer when I answer "what I do."
I want to be artist,
and pay my bills.
This shouldn't be so impossible.
Now that I've found all of this,
I'm afraid of losing it.
I have a heavy heart when I think of coming home
because I'm terrified that this will all disappear
in the haze of working and scrambling in the city.
I've been having a go at everyone who will listen
lately because of this terribly anxiety.
For that, I am sorry, but I just feel so inconsolably heavy.
I know I'm being incredibly unfair
to the people who love me at home
I sound ungrateful in this wanting to prolong
my time away.
I don't want to stay apart from you, no matter how it might sound.
I just don't want this past year to be the end
of this chapter of my life.
And I'm terrified that I don't know how to keep it carrying on.
I can already feel the weight of being a 'working artist' pressing into me.
The panic of not having enough 'real' work,
not being a commercial enough artist.
And it's dragging me down, making me heavy.
I want a space of my own, the chance to make work and write,
and the freedom to enjoy doing both.
This independence is precious, having had just a tease this year.
I'm already lonely
For this thing I wasn't sure I wanted,
and now can't bear to leave behind.
to find the way to articulate
how this all feels.
It's not that I hate change.
In fact, it's not that at all.
I love flux, shifting, moving from one thing into another.
Staying still scares me, so I'm always moving into a different something.
It is endings that I loathe.
The goodbyes, the finishing, the ending of a fantastic chapter,
with no way of knowing how the next one will start.
When things end, I find myself here.
In this sad little selfish place.
I don't want this year to end.
I want to get married, and see my beloved Apple...
And cuddle my sweet grey kitten.
But I don't want to lose the things I've found,
the life I wasn't sure I wanted until it found me in London.
I want to be an artist,
but not an actress that waits interminably on audition lines
for roles she, if she's honest, doesn't much care about,
and hope desperately for that one in a million chance.
I want to be an artist,
not shoving in stolen seconds of studio time around three part-time jobs
seeing the successful of the city sneer when I answer "what I do."
I want to be artist,
and pay my bills.
This shouldn't be so impossible.
Now that I've found all of this,
I'm afraid of losing it.
I have a heavy heart when I think of coming home
because I'm terrified that this will all disappear
in the haze of working and scrambling in the city.
I've been having a go at everyone who will listen
lately because of this terribly anxiety.
For that, I am sorry, but I just feel so inconsolably heavy.
I know I'm being incredibly unfair
to the people who love me at home
I sound ungrateful in this wanting to prolong
my time away.
I don't want to stay apart from you, no matter how it might sound.
I just don't want this past year to be the end
of this chapter of my life.
And I'm terrified that I don't know how to keep it carrying on.
I can already feel the weight of being a 'working artist' pressing into me.
The panic of not having enough 'real' work,
not being a commercial enough artist.
And it's dragging me down, making me heavy.
I want a space of my own, the chance to make work and write,
and the freedom to enjoy doing both.
This independence is precious, having had just a tease this year.
I'm already lonely
For this thing I wasn't sure I wanted,
and now can't bear to leave behind.
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