The Fair

Generally, the British are very polite when it comes to driving. They cooperate quite well and drive reasonably. But when there’s no one else around, they gun it. Related fact: (I credit this observation to Christina McClendon) Instead of bumper cars, they’re called dodge ‘ems.

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Did I mention that there’s no parade of the weird in London, as there seems to be with every American city? I was (sort of) wrong. We went to the Chinatown section of London for dinner tonight. It is not as opulent as San Francisco’s, but it gets the job done, I guess. There was a strange dude in a prom dress. I can’t explain it, but the food was good. Duck is always a rule at Chinese restaurants.

The Chinese restaurant that we ate at also falsified my Chinese Restaurant theory. The theory goes thusly: all Chinese restaurants must name their restaurant according to this formula (A color) + (Something martial). Ex: Golden Phoenix, Red Dragon, Rainbow Port, Golden Dynasty, etc. This restaurant broke the theory. That’s one of my great theories, along with my sacred Anti-Game theory, and if that gets broken, all hell breaks loose.

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Earlier in the day, we were in Oxford (obviously, we live there). A fair descended on Oxford. Materialized might be a better word. The festival was held in Cornmarket, the major commercial street of Oxford. It has pretty good foot traffic, especially since it’s pedestrian-only for part of the street. Yesterday, it was as normal and therefore fairly crowded; today was teeming, like when you leave a bacteria colony alone and it just multiplies. Somehow someone constructed several gigantic rides. While it’s not Six Flags-type shit, it was just below that. There were bumper cars (dodge ‘ems), merry-go-rounds and other various steel windmills whirling people in the air. Of course, it’s never a fair without massive amounts of food, right? There was tons of it, especially American food: I’ve never seen a hot dog served in England except for this street fair.

It was in the Americana, both in food and on rides, that provided the most interest for me, the amateur sociologist. First, amusingly, there was a café called “Le Bistro,” but did not serve anything, so far as I could ascertain, French. In fact, its menu consisted entirely of American food. I have no interesting conclusions to tendentiously draw from this; it’s just pretty amusing.

Here’s something I will beat to death though. A bunch of rides hailed America with slightly gauzy paintings. If you’ve ever seen street vendors trying to foist hyper-realistic paintings of celebrities on you, you know exactly the style that these portraits on the side of the rides were in. So, to England, this is America: for movie stars and pop celebrities, Will Smith (gesturing vaguely like a magician), Usher with pulsating pectorals, Cameron Diaz, Britney (hot), Tweety (as a rapper). We can therefore conclude that England believes all our men are black and attractive, and our women are clowns. Not all bad, I guess.

Another ride featured football. These were the players featured: Donovan McNabb, Brett Favre and Rodney Harrison flexing in a pink Patriots jersey. The Cowboys were represented by a man in a red jersey; the Giants by a shadow, and the Dolphins by “#81 Harrison.” Perhaps no one got the memo that Marvin plays for the Colts? Or am I forgetting a Harrison that played for the Dolphins?

I’m kind of disappointed that football is the sport that represents America, though. It is the most popular of American sports, of course, so it’s logical that that’s what other nations would have exposure to. But I don’t like it, not so much because I dislike football, but because football is such an inartistic and brutal game, and I’d prefer our nation to represented by baseball or basketball or something. In fact, you can claim that both baseball and basketball are more authentically American games than football.

Baseball, after all, is the most individualistic sport of all the major team sports. Its individuality is found within the ritualized encounters between pitcher and batter, mano a mano. Furthermore, baseball has been more enduringly historically popular than football amongst Americans.

Basketball was invented in America, and counts as its influences American games, especially an Aztec one whose name I forget. Basketball has always been America’s city sport; in its early history, Italians and Jews were best at the game, until the economic rearrangements of the latter half of the twentieth century. Anyway, America’s always been a nation of immigrants and basketball’s always been a game of immigrants more so than the other team sports.

And all this from a fair.

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Our show was right in Piccadilly Circus. I’ve written earlier of it, but I’d like to reiterate how cool it is. It’s as if the British decided to imitate Times Square but restrained themselves. It gives off the effect of shining lights without overwhelming. And the statue of Eros in the center is a great touch.

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The show was an adaptation of Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, which I saw yesterday. They turned the movie on its head. They changed a moderately amusing thriller into a postmodern satire of excess. They stripped the cast down to four members, who were constantly switching roles and acknowledging the artifice of the whole situation and of the tropes of the thriller genre and Hitchcock in general. Particularly amusing was the hero’s parody of getting the girl at the end. Also appreciated was the Hitchcock cameo. It was hilarious and unexpected, so it was well done.

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A man just passed by my window now and said, “I won’t fucking have it! No more fucking beer!”

Someone’s a party pooper.