The New College…Founded in 1379

1) The title is as good a summary as any of our Oxford history tour…which is why I’ll expand for much longer than that about it. What’s neat about Oxford (the university) is how crammed together everything is. Everything is a hop, skip and a jump away from one another, first of all. Second, whenever you use your “widescreen” view, and look at the totality of the really old building in question (which are all really well-preserved), you miss out on the small details, with tons of gargoyles and other flourishes. And third, going off the gargoyles note: on the ceiling of the first floor Bodelian Library, there are a ton of random symbols, religious iconography, and coats-of-arms. Which all seems very mysterious until you realize that the symbols and coats-of-arms represent the richer families who donated money to the college for the privilege of having their symbols up there. So, the more things change…

2) Amateur Sociology:

American Fast Food Restaurants in Oxford, as far as I can tell:
PIZZA HUT: 2
STARBUCKS: 2
BURGER KING: 1
McDONALD’s: 1

At Bookstores:

Judging from the number of books at the bookstores, the British are obsessed with Stalin in a similar way that we are with Hitler. Which is all well and good, given that in the US, Stalin is the underrated evil dictator

Also, I saw a book called The Fall-Out by some dude that professes to be about a “liberal” who falls-out of “liberalism”. This intrigued me momentarily, as I thought that the word “liberal” in Europe was essentially the equivalent of “libertarian.” I was wrong: the first paragraph of the dust jacket talks about his support of the Sandinista guerrillas, meaning that the real equivalence of this book are tired old “let’s-bash-the-liberals” genre in America, of the likes of Ann Coulter. Why does the liberal of the book always support something really dumb like the Sandinistas? Why can’t it be something of some possible substance, like the Great Society or something like that?

3) Book Review: Can I Keep My Jersey?

This is a book about a journeyman basketball player named Paul Shirley. He writes about his experiences trying to make it in professional basketball in Russia, Greece, Spain and the U.S. It’s a very entertaining book, as Shirley’s a funny, cynical guy with a good eye for detail. It’s really fun for an NBA fan who wants to guess who he’s cryptically (or not so cryptically) referring to in some of his anecdotes, like the UNLV player making $14 million per year on the Suns who wants to win the lottery “so he’d have it made.” Oh Shawn Marion. Fans of Bill Simmons and Chuck Klosterman will like his style, as it’s in the same vein. Unfortunately, he’s not quite as incisive as the latter, and he often descends into too much of a “woe-is-me” attitude. I really enjoyed it though, mostly because I love basketball. Highly recommended.

4) We went to London today and saw a play called the Five Wives of Maurice Pinter. About a polygamist who’s not a Mormon, thank you very much. We got great seats and a bus, thanks to the Bings—that’s a lot better than a symbol on the ceiling, huh? Anyway, it was an interesting play but missing a certain something that I don’t know about. Good, though: funny and dramatic, exactly the tone I enjoy writing in. I’d recommend that too.

5) Weather is not the reason to visit England