A Course Thoroughly Enjoyed
I took a writing course in my first semester at NYU that I really liked. It was creative, well-taught by a nice professor, and we went on many site visits around London that added depth and meaning to our essays. Here are a few of my favorite pieces from the course. Most of them inspect the workings of a physical space in London; they put mind to the matter that can be found around the city.
Battersea Power Station
POWER?
A train rushes over Battersea bridge on the West border of the village with semi frequency. To the East, drilling and other muffled construction noises emanate from the scaffold ridden power station itself, but everything else is quiet. Periodically a white and well dressed person walks past, but the stealthiness of the Yeezys – which seem to adorn every foot, regardless of the associated age or outfit – perpetuates an eerie calm. There are some guards, or at least people all in yellow-vested uniform that discern themselves from the rest of the villagers by chewing gum, having dark skin, or drinking out of a disposable water bottle with the cheap thin plastic that crinkles obnoxiously. Despite the area being easily accessible to the public, the guards are relaxed and don’t seem to have a permanent posting. It may be safe to assume certain unwanted types wouldn’t even bother coming through.
You can download an app to follow along with the Battersea power station augmented reality heritage trail (Monica Ali would certainly disapprove), or strike out on your own. Although most signs around London are quite helpful in directing beyond the ‘neighborhood’ or ‘village’ you find yourself in, signs in Battersea are more insular and point only towards shops and restaurants within the compound. There is the smell of food from some Eastern origin down a nicely curated side street, but even it smells “cleaned up” like the chef was warned not to use so much cumin or curry spices that may hang too long and heavy in the air. Oh the irony of the Nepali looking flags appropriated to criss-cross festively above the street. Battersea is a proud sponsor of an international contemporary art show!
There are beautiful gardens and greenery everywhere, but all in a pristine and kempt way. Look up at the fully matured dwarf trees housed in a glass case on each level of the apartment complex. You can’t help but be impressed by the perfectly modern-rustic landscape. The developers mastered a fusion of bright & clean with the dirty & old aesthetic of London. Making your way past an advertisement that brags “ENOUGH TO POWER 52,000 HOMES” above a workman sipping an energy drink on his lunch break, a wooden bridge leads to a well-established dock on the Thames. Three ducks are swimming near the bank – only the crème de la crème of the species – and watching the transformation of the monument. Speculating the rise in the price of paddling territory? It is funny because shit always runs downhill… drain water trickles down into the Thames out of a mossy brick wall just the same as the window cleaner’s soapy suds run down meters and meters of luxury apartment glass. If you peer up towards the 12th or 13th floor, a properly dressed old man with comically white hair looks down on all of this from behind his freshly cleaned window. What does he feel?
Tavistock Square
WC1
6 Bedford Square to Tavistock Square. An estimated 10-20min journey depending on your clip.
Look left, look right, look both ways. Just please – look anywhere besides your handheld mobile device. So many young academics, but despite this being Bloomsbury there is a disappointing number of books to be seen around. There are some wet stacks of pages laying outside an academic centre and yesterday’s fishwrap looking dejectedly soggy on a bench; a few citizens deserve an A for effort, but their content must not have been all that important. Fair enough you may not want to lug a book around all day, but there isn’t a hand that discriminates against a phone or a vape or a trusty cigarette.
Which budding young genius started the trend of leaving your trash inside the shell of an old electric box on the corner? Pret, Pret, and more Pret piled up in a soaked collection of mostly mangé-ed discard. There is never a bad place to sit down, or sleep-down for that matter. Any bench or the least moist patch of lawn available will do. Any and every type of person: white, olive, caramel, chocolate, tattoos, piercings, boots, formerly-white sneakers, Hermes, Gap, backpack, purse, murse, braids, dreads, bleach blonde, green, pink, leather, vegans, homeless, multi-property owners. There’s also never a bad place for a cig. “Is Socialism Still Possible?” a weathered A4 poster demands over the top of a McDonald’s advertisement. Hats off to some American international students for trying, but Bernie is simply too old.
In the square a man doing laps on the phone. Distracted walking is the easiest; six laps down in the time I have been here. When the call is over what do you do? An abrupt return to reality can be jarring. Have a cig.
Pret, the lesser seen Starbucks take away, and the occasional someone having a lunch of their own making wrapped in good old-fashioned aluminum foil. A very rare sighting of the type everyone knows: the salad-eater with their very own green initiative reusable tupperware. Their companion in health consciousness! A crow goes after the remnants of a bright orange ginger shot – also from Pret.
Look right, look left, look both ways, sit down on a bench. Breathe in the quietly charged and contemplative diversity of WC1.
