Stoned

DOCKED:   In our ongoing commitment to keeping up our New York and London legs, today the kids and I went on another hour long walk.

We headed NNE, toward Fisherman's Terminal.

ONLY THE STONES REMAIN: So, we went to England. You're probably getting tired of hearing that if you read this blog regularly. I know, we didn't invent traveling abroad, but given it was our first time, it was a Pretty Darn Big Deal to us.

While in Great Britain, we simply *had* to go to Stonehenge. Who wouldn't want to visit the mysterious neo-Druid monument. Radiocarbon dating suggests the stones were erected between 2400 and 2200 BC. A burial ground, was it also a sun-worship center? A mystical healing site? A huge calendar?  Some or none of the above and more. ...

All I know is that clearly people from all over the world are drawn to this place in the countryside, 8 miles north of Salisbury.

We'll never know what Stonehenge looked like waaay back in the day, but here's a depiction from 1645.

And we can attest it looks much different than it did in this 1877 photograph.

A bunch of the lateral/ground stones are gone, as is that tilting one in the right-center foreground.

Stonehenge has attracted visitors and attention for centuries. I love this photo, below, of the 10th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces march past Stonehenge in the winter of 1914-15.  Note the timber shoring Stonehenge up in the background. And that cottage behind the troops is long gone.

The BBC has a handy, one-minute animation of the history of Stonehenge here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7322444.stme

We visited Stonehenge on Sunday, Sept. 15. I think the gray skies helped keep the crowds down. We arrived around 11 a.m., before the day's onslaught. The day we visited wasn't the nicest, weather wise, but as it turned out, that wasn't a terrible thing

Following are waaaaaaaaay too many photos of upright stones. Bear with me. As I was shooting, I was thinking, "You're taking way too many photos." But then the other Me said, "Yeah, but you're never gonna be here again. And it's frickin' STONEHENGE!!!"

Hello, my pretty. Are you ready for your closeup?!

 Note the flowers which found a way to bloom at the base of the solo boulder above.

The first two 'towers' look remarkably similar.

 The pattern continued around the circle.

 To me, the two uprights with the horizontal connecting looked like the sign of pi. Who knows what it looked like initially, but I just saw pi, pi, pi, pi ...

 Of course, I couldn't help but wonder about the lateral stones. Were they *always* lateral, or had gravity taken its toll somewhere long the way?
 One upright kept demanding my attention.  See the one just left of center above, and on the right, below? Doesn't it look like there's something inside of the upright?

The kids listened to some of the audio tour of Stonehenge, and I asked them if this was explained on their audio tour and they said 'no.'  I'd love it if anyone out there has an explanation.

 Look, more stones!

 And more ...

 and more ...

I took some close ups, of course.  This craggy part caught my eye. 

Wonder what happened there? Maybe it's where the locals used to let tourists chip away at Stonehenge for a fee.

I took a few "pi pairs" shots. ... The one below looks like it has barnacles.

 And look at the mini pillars above.

 In the photo above, I was actually taking a photo of the Japanese tourist taking a photo.

And this one below looks so darn squared off compared to the rest.

Visitors are all herded in a counter-clockwise circle around the monument. On the way out, you encounter this interesting stone sticking out of the ground at an odd angle. And you can't help but think it has a bit of a face. ...

 It's called the heelstone.

English Heritage has a very cool Interactive Stonehenge map here: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stonehenge/world-heritage-site/map/

There are all sorts of accounts and speculation about why and by whom Stonehenge was built. For fun, I asked the kids to write their own Stonehenge-creation stories today.

Remarkably, I was able to get most of our Stonehenge shots without scads of other people in the frame. However, the kids did manage to get into the shot a couple of times. ;)

Yes, Annabelle, I'm still taking photos ...

And here is a trio of intrepid travelers.  With a large tour group over their shoulders.

First up, Annabelle's.  Of course, she had to include an illustration ...

A long time ago, in England, there was a magical Dragon that had lived in the field around Stonehenge. He lived here because there were plenty of sheep to eat and plenty of room to fly. One day, a brave knight came. 

"Dragon," said the knight, "I and my village ask you leave to a new land, as we need more space, many people have come." 

The dragon looked at him, considering the question. "Hmmmm.....How about no?"

"Okay dragon. But I shall be back tomorrow to ask you the question again. After that, is your last chance to leave," said the knight, galloping away on his horse.

The next evening, the dragon was eating sheep. He heard a voice say, "Hello again, Dragon!" He looked down to see the knight.

"Oh. Hi." said the dragon.

"This is your second chance to leave, to remind you. Anyway, please leave to a new land, as we need more space, many people have come." said the knight.

"My friend, the answer is still no," said the dragon, and the knight returned to his village.

Another day had passed, and this time the dragon was ready for the knight. But instead had come a mage. "Please leave to a new land, as we need more...."

"I know the question, and the answer still is no," said the dragon.

"Then you leave me no choice." And the mage cast a spell, turning the dragon to stone, which then exploded and landed in the formation now known as Stonehenge.

THE END

And here's CJ's take

Stonehenge was built after a god named Xenu went on a trip to Europe. Xenu had an overly long beard, almost twice his height. He was born in North Korea, but fled all the way to Europe, which was connected to Asia, so he could seek democracy. Not only that, but he had overly large hands that could lift an elephant. During his trip, there were some Ancient Welsh soldiers, not knowing who he was or what he was there for, they decided to attack him. For hours and hours they attacked him with stones, and as the battle got longer, the more stones were thrown.

After hours of this, Xenu decided he had enough of the stone throwing, and decided to flee to England. He had actually collected all of the stones that were threw at him, and decided he had to do something with them. So, he made them into larger stones, assembled them in the shape of Stonehenge, and threw it over to Wiltshire, and that is the story of Stonehenge.

Fall and The Wall

                       

TURN, TURN, TURN: It wasn't pouring down rain today, which marked quite a change in our weather as of late. We decided to take advantage of the patchy sky and take a nice long walk.  

We headed up and over the hill and took note of the seasonal changes in our neighborhood. We loved the tree pictured up top. It was the colors of sherbet.

Gold is appearing all over the landscape.

The kids got some swinging in. 

We also stopped to appreciate plants which are interesting all year long. This one looks like it was paint-splattered.

And isn't this hydrangea lovely?

REALLY BIG SHOW: In the seemingly never-ending effort to document our field trip to NY and England, I continue to play catch up. Today's chapter, finally, a proper review of Roger Waters (and company) performing "The Wall" at Wembley Stadium.

Interestingly, CJ's desire to see "The Wall" performed live was the impetus for our whole trip. A hardcore Pink Floyd fan, last April he mentioned (and mentioned and mentioned) his desire to see the show, and I told him that I was pretty sure Waters was on tour in Europe at the time or soon. We looked it up, and saw dates across Europe, including one in London on Sept. 14. We looked at tickets and saw they were still available and reasonably priced.

"Well, can we go?" CJ asked.

Instead of the obvious answer, "NO!" I thought about it said, "Well, maybe. Let's see what your dad says." So that afternoon, while CJ and Annabelle were in yoga class, Christian and I mulled it over over a couple of pints of microbrew and decided that it seemed like reasonable request after all.  We'd been planning to have our next Big Trip be to New York, and heck, if you're all the way in NY, London is just a hop across the pond, right?

CJ was one happy boy after yoga class, when we told him Roger Waters was a go. We bought our concert tickets that night and the rest is history. ;)

I'd always wanted to go to Wembley, the site of so many iconic concerts in past years. Walking up to it was a thrill.

And once inside, as I stared down at the stage from our lofty seats, I couldn't help but picture Freddie Mercury roaming the stage, at the height of his Queendom. :)

As you can see, the stage front featured an enormous wall, with just the middle open. 

The show started around 8 p.m., just as the skies were darkening.

The concert was quite the production.

It started with fireworks. Literally!

The wall wasn't a static monolith. Rather, it was the focal point, on which words and images were constantly splashed during the show.

Below, a chorus of school aged children sing "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2" toward a tormenting school master (a huge puppet).

The school master tormented the crowd a bit, too.

As the show progressed, the wall got bigger and bigger.

And more and more of the band disappeared behind it, though their images were projected on it.

Here, the band can barely be seen.

And now, they're all gone. But can you see tiny Roger, below, approaching Really Big Roger?

By intermission, the large white wall was complete, and on it, memorials to war victims were projected.

I had always thought of "The Wall" being very anti-establishment, but not until that concert did I realize what a strong anti-war message it conveys. And, as was the case at the concert, the message was often delivered with gripping visuals.

For instance, there was this startling video - of Roger 'gunning' down the crowd, with a hail of gunfire. A little unnerving ...

And the searchlights during "In the Flesh" were creepy, too.

During ***, a string of words appeared on the screen over images of suffering.

The series of screens read ... 

Every gun that’s made
Every warship launched
Every rocket fired represents
In the final sense
A theft
From those who hunger and are not fed
Those who are cold and are not clothed

And Waters ended it with this phrase ...

Apparently, I wasn't the only one wondering about the quote.  Waters explained in a post on Facebook. ... , 

"It’s part of a speech Eisenhower made on April 16th 1953. ... I came across this quote in an op-ed piece in the NY Times by columnist Bob Herbert.

The truth of Eisenhower’s statement hit me like a battering ram. For anyone who doesn't get it, this old dead republican warrior President is explaining to us that we’re all in this together, white, black, red, yellow, Hindu, Christian, Moslem (sic), Jew, North American, Latin American, European, Asian, African, Middle Eastern, whatever, and that every dollar we allow our governments to pour into the gaping maw of the war machine is one dollar less available to help fellow human beings in need. In need of food, yes, clothing, yes, but also, here at home and abroad, in need of the education to demand that our governments lift our politics above the level of bullies in a schoolyard.

That’s what old Dwight meant.

You can say he was a dreamer, but he’s not the only one.

Roger Waters"

So there you have it.

During the show, they launched the flying pig, of course. There simply *must* be a flying pig. It was pretty damn cool, controlled via remote, and flying all over the stadium.

Toward the end of the show, they purposely crashed it into the crowd, who proceeded to dismantle it, of course.

And speaking of dismantling, you know the wall had to fall.  Here, Roger hits it with his guitar. (Oh, how my old, tired Sony struggled at the show, but I didn't want to risk taking my big camera and having it confiscated.)

Going ... going ...

 Gone! Well, mostly.

I had the kids write concert reviews today. CJ's is first.

On September 14th, 2013, we went to London, England, to see Roger Waters perform "The Wall Live." During the show, We saw him perform all of the songs from "The Wall", and not only that, but there was a major message of anti-war.
We went to Wembley Stadium, the largest stadium I have ever seen. I noticed that Wembley Stadium was meant to be a football stadium, but it worked anyway for a concert. Also, there was a LARGE arch over the stadium, probably to attract attention. Not only that, but there were many glass images of football games. 

When we were on our way to the stadium, we had trouble parking, (due to the size of Wembley Stadium) and if we had not made smart moves, we would have missed the concert. We had trouble finding empty spaces (no pun intended) for parking, and it would have been a waste of our money if we had missed the concert.

At the concert, I had noticed that there was a EXTREMELY LARGE audience there, and I can guarantee you that the majority of them were Europeans and/or tourists (for obvious reasons.) During the show, I saw a person wearing a coat with the design of the flag of Brazil on it (as proof that some people came from FAR away to see that concert).

When we left the concert, we (no joke) actually went to the best porta potty (porta loo, as they call it there) I had ever seen, as it had flushes, you didn't have to see the pile of human waste at the bottom, and there were air fresheners so that it didn't smell awful. Also, when we got outside the stadium, there was an entire sea of humanity outside, walking to their cars (or whatever transported them.) We got to our cars by jumping over the fence.

(Side note: my favorite song from the concert was "Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvO3Jf5bTkE (Preview) )
(Pt. 2 begins at the 5:24 mark in the video)

And here's Annabelle's take:

On the 14th of September, my family and I went to see Roger Waters, a former Pink Floyd band member, perform CJ's favorite album- Pink Floyd The Wall at Wembley stadium. The stadium was HUGE and many people were there, almost the whole stadium (that wasn't behind the stage) was filled. Before we got to the stadium, though, we were stuck trying to find the right parking lot, because Wembley had many of them. After we did it was easy to find parking. Lines for food, drinks and bathrooms were very long but that wasn't too much of a problem. The show had great special effects, such as projections on the wall. Speaking of the wall, they actually built it during the performance! At first I didn't notice, but then I saw that it was always getting bigger. My favorite song was Another Brick in the Wall pt. 2 (here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8utzJfL-QU) and some of the suprises would definitely be the loud points in the music. Afterward we got back to our car and away from the human sea by climbing a fence. Overall it was a GREAT concert and I give it a 11/10!!!!

WONDERFUL WIZARD: Night before last I saw "The Origins of Oz" pop up on our TV listings on The Smithsonian Channel. I thought CJ might enjoy the show. I thought right. We all did, in fact.

It's hard to imagine we don't all know everything there is to know about The Wizard of Oz by now, but 75 years later, some aspects are still new to us, as it turns out. For instance, the one hour documentary showed real-life locations that inspired L Frank Baum's "Land of Oz" and explained how elements in the classic tale came to be. We also learned about Baum's humble roots, his fame, fortune, financial ruins and rebounds. He led a rollercoaster of a life.

Good news, Oz fans, you can watch the whole documentary online! Just follow this yellow brick road. Er, I mean, link!: http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/sc/web/show/137669/the-origins-of-oz

It's hard to imagine a story that is more enduring or pervasive in our culture. Heck, during the Roger Waters' concert we went to, images of Dorothy and friends were projected on the wall during the show.