Jun. 18th, 2012

Birmingham

Jun. 18th, 2012 09:54 am
abouthalfthree: "Those who throw objects to the crocodiles will be asked to retrieve them." (Objects from Crocodiles)
Today I fly to Hamburg. So that's mostly what's on the agenda.

Yesterday was hanging out with people in Birmingham and eating lots of pudding. Lunch out and then dinner with friends.

Saturday after breakfast I went to the Wellcome Collection, which is fascinating. Eccentric British collectors! The collection is mostly medical stuff. There was interesting exhibition about modern medical techniques and culture, with contemporary art instalations as well. Including one I really like, non-prescription pills carved into the shape of the organs they are supposed to treat. Also a map of the world, the coast lines of the continents, made out of mosquitos.

The main collection of Wellcome's stuff includes things like Florence Nightingale's moccasins, Lord Nelson's razor, Charles Darwin's walking sticks and a fragment of Jeremey Bentham's skin.

Birmingham is familiar! That is very nice. It hasn't changed much, except the new library is out of the ground, almost finished.

The city of Sophronia is made up of two half-cities. In one there is the great roller coaster with its steep humps, the carousel with its chain spokes, the Ferris wheel of spinning cages, the death-ride with crouching motorcyclists, the big top with the clump of trapezes hanging in the middle. The other half-city is of stone and marble and cement, with the bank, the factories, the palaces, the slaughterhouse, the school, and all the rest. One of the half-cities is permanent, the other is temporary, and when the period of its sojourn is over, they uproot it, dismantle it, and take it off, transplanting it to the vacant lots of another half-city.

~ Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino