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November
the fifth is a holiday I never heard of: Guy Fawkes Day.
In 1604 Guy tried to blow up
Parliament. He hid 36 barrels of gun
powder below the building. But, before he
could light the fuse, he was caught. So,
Brittons celebrate by lighting bond fires and setting off
fireworks. Whether they are celebrating
his capture, or his attempted deed, depends on who you ask. I like the ambiguty of this holliday.
At
night I walked to the river for a good view of London.
Fireworks sporadically went off, but I
attributed them to a few punk kids. Surely,
a real, professional show was planned for the
evening. I walked along the bank of the
river as I
waited, crossing the bridges when I came to them. My
path was like needle stitching down the Thames.
As
the night drew on, the fireworks concentrated in one part of the city. Not wanting to miss the show I followed them
into the quasi-suburban area of South West London.
Finding the
fireworks display was like finding a mirage. Color
burst in the sky, and I'd head in that direction -
but the
unfamiliar terrain thwarted my progress. Long,
curved blocks of connected homes prevented me from
going the way I
wanted. I kept hoping to turn a corner
or go down the right alleyway and discover a park filled with people,
but it
didn't happen. After losing my
orientation in the high walled maze of houses I'd see the fireworks
again, try
to head in that direction, and the process would begin anew. Like a good, will-o-the-wisp, or Murkwood
elf, the fireworks lured me deeper and deeper into the unknown.
By
now, fireworks filled the sky, but to my frustration, I still couldn't
find
their source. I foolishly thought I had
wandered into a suburban island in the center of a park were the show
was
taking place. It seemed the only way to
explain the omni-directional and tantalizingly close display.
Then,
a rocket screamed out from between two houses - passed not ten feet
from my
head - and made a last-second turn to zoom into the sky.
It dawned on me why I couldn't find the
show: there wasn't one. The fireworks
seemed to be on the other side of the homes because they were. People were ignited them in their backyards. Every house sent off sporadic fireworks and
the sum effect lit the neighborhood.
What had been a pleasant
evening's walk turned frightening with this knowledge.
I was surrounded by drunk men and teenagers
playing with projectile explosives. I
imagined the hospitals were busy that night. If
a stray rocket took off part of my body I would have a
long line to
wait on before I could it reattatched.
I wanted to leave right away,
but, I had been drawn so far into South West London, that I had no idea
how. I looked for a tube station, but
didn't find one. I tried the buses, but
none of them had familiar destinations on the route.
I couldn't even tell if they drove further into the
explosive
night or back to the protective center of the city.
I became nervous
and afraid. Lost, and with small
explosions all around I was about to lose my composure and run in no
particular
direction when a voice in my head calmly whispered 'find the river'. It was the voice of a ancient ancestor. One who had faced the same dilemma in a
different kind of jungle. I closed my
eyes and tried to connect with the power of the flowing water, to let
it draw
me near. Thousands of years ago, this
ancestor navigated the natural world. Perhaps
that ability to connect with nature was a species
trait. I had only to look deep within
myself to
find it.
This lasted about two seconds before I remembered I'm a guy
from Long Island, New York and the closest I like to get to nature is
zooming
past it in a climate controlled train or a car.
Coming to my senses,
I used city knowledge to my advantage. If
you look down on a city at night from an airplane, the
river is
usually clearly outlined in light much brighter than the surrounding
area. I looked up, and sure enough, the
sky was
brighter in one direction. The lights
completely obscured the stars my ancestor would have used to navigate
and it disrupted
the lives of countless nocturnal species. I
was happy to see it. I
walked
in the direction of the unnaturally bright sky and within ten minutes I
stood
on the shore of the River Thames.
After my brush with
fireworks-by-anarchy, I went in search of a more orderly display. First I tried Parliament.
This day was all about them (sorta) so I
expected they would have a good show.
But no, the only show at Parliament was
the on
going, 24-hour, anti-war protest. They
were on the street across from Parliament and had covered the area with
anti-Bush/Blair/war posters. A woman
with a bullhorn was yelling her grievances at the building.
The building seemed not to
care.
I stayed on the Parliament side of the road and listened.
Every time a double decker bus passed
between us it was as though someone pressed the mute button on her
bullhorn.
"We are calling for a - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - against Tony Blair! This government has made it clear that - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - but our voice will
not be
silenced!"
It was strange to hear her voice not drowned out by
a louder sound, but simply removed from the sceene by the eighteen-foot
high
moving wall that is a double decker bus. If
I was Parliament, I would reroute every empty bus
through that
street.
In spite of her impassioned speech, and the interesting
posters (the words 'Delivering Democracy' surrounding a bomb) the lack
of
fireworks drove me elsewhere. Perhaps
Parliament was still sore about coming within one lit match of
destruction.
I went to Buckingham Palace, but the Queen must have
been asleep because there were no fireworks either.
I continued to
walk around the city hoping that my favorite locations would have
something
going on, but there was a surprising lack of activity everywhere. In
the
distance I could still hear the booming sounds of South West London. It gave me the impression that a poorly
planned bombing of the city was underway. The
enemy had mistakenly targeted residential areas
instead of the
Queen, the Lords, and the commercial district.
The eventing was a
washout, so I headed over to Trafalgar Square to sit on the lions,
enjoy the
crisp air, and write this journal.
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