Cold War Modern Revisited

The Beautiful Competition and I headed to the V&A yesterday for the last weekend of the Cold War Modern exhibition, which I visited on my own last year. It was definitely worth seeing again (and if you're in London and reading this, you have about three hours to see it today! Hurry!) Bigger crowds and less room, same great stuff.

I managed to take something else away that I had not previously: a much greater understanding and appreciation for the Cold War from a European perspective. I grew up with the American-side jingoism of course, Big Bad Commies that have to be defeated, better dead than Red, and the shadow the mushroom clouds cast over everything - although to be fair, my parents probably had it ten times worse. By the time I was aware of what was going on, Glasnost and Perestroika and McDonald's in Red Square were turning the USSR into Russia and the American military-industrial complex would soon have to find a new enemy.

But from a European perspective, things were far less black-and-white. To put the Cold War into context, I realized, you have to think about the end of World War 2 and what Europe looked like; when the Americans were done, they came home to smiling wives and cookie-cutter houses in the suburbs. When the Europeans were done, they looked around at a continent largely ravaged by the war; entire cities levelled in some instances, and lives completely disrupted in others. The competition between the USA and the USSR was not so much about defeating bad guys, but about which system of government would prevent such a thing from happening again: the freedom of an open market, or the control of a strong central government? And it was a question various people answered in various ways, sometimes as puppets or pawns of the superpowers, sometimes fighting proxy battles of their own, sometimes willingly but many times not, and sometimes divided by age or class or religion.

It was certainly an eye-opening experience, and one of the things I truly value about my time here; these realizations are much harder if not impossible to come by when you're not living in the places where these things happened.

Remember, Remember

Yesterday was Remembrance Day in the UK, which we celebrate in America as Veteran's Day. In America it's celebrated as a day where you remember veterans of all wars, and there are parades but no one really pays a lot of attention. Any why is it on November 11th? I admit, I couldn't have told you until yesterday.

Here Remembrance Day is Armistice Day - the day that the Great War (World War I) officially came to an end. America kind of sat that one out until the victor was clear, but it devastated Europe in a completely unprecedented manner. We were taught the dates and details: Archduke Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Red Baron, trench warfare. But it was always something that happened at a distance - a great distance. Here it was something that happened, well, Here. Right here. Every small town I've been to in the UK, even the tiny ones like Kettlewell, have a Great War memorial for the WWI dead.

They added names on after World War II.

I also noted there is still room for more names on many of the memorials.

Yesterday I saw something I've never seen before. The entire nation observes two minutes of silence at 11 AM on Armistice Day, to mark the exact time when the war ended. I've seen moments of silence before and typically people just kind of carry on with their business. Not here. Our entire office stopped doing what they were doing and we all watched the ceremony on the television, when one of the last three Great War vets in the UK laid a wreath on the memorial. Someone mentioned later he was 112 years old. He looked like he was about to cry. No one in our office said or did anything other than watching the television to see this happen, and our two minutes of silence lasted about five minutes in total.

It was sobering to see how deeply the Great War still affects people here. As the 'first modern war' it could (arguably) be said that it had the greatest impact on the 20th century because of the new technologies employed and the sheer mechanical savagery of killing others, and not only did it have a profound impact on European political structures but also on the attitudes of the people here. When people accuse the French of being dirty peaceniks, maybe the reason for that is that they have seen more than their fair share of some of the worst slaughter ever visited on other human beings.

It's certainly a stark contrast to America, that's for sure.

I'm still not 100% certain what yesterday meant to me, but it was one of those singular experiences that I will remember for a long time to come - which, I suppose, is the point.

Also, I have to point out Diamond Geezer's side-by-side poem from yesterday - it's quietly profound in its own right.

How We Do It In America

My absentee ballot is due to be delivered to my office today so I can fill it out and Fed Ex it back to America. My coworkers wanted to know how we vote in America - online? Tick a box? Punch out a hole?

I told them we take our guns and shoot holes in the boxes next to the candidate we want to indicate our support for that candidate.

I mean, duh.

This Is The Day Of Our Independence Day (What?)

It's strange celebrating the 4th in London, considering I'm surrounded by the very people that my forefathers some rich white guys 120 years before my ancestors even arrived in America fought against. When I got to the office, several people wished me Happy Independence Day, to which I responded by flipping them the bird and saying 'screw you, Redcoat!'

There are no fireworks today for me, but we are going on a team outing at work where we're going to play baseball in St. James' Park. I have official scoresheets, just like I used to use in Little League, and ten copies of 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame' which we'll be singing during the 7th Inning Stretch.

This is going to be a lot of fun.

British Humo(u)r

Overheard in the pub:

Q: Why did Diana cross the road?
A: She wasn't wearing her seat belt.

Welp.

Europe / America: On Sports

Sports are Serious Business no matter where you are. Some places, sports is more serious business than other places. A lot of people think Americans are really serious about their sports. After all, we turn out by the hundreds of thousands to watch sports where pansies in pads try to move a ball around and take breaks every 30 seconds, sports where fat men try to hit balls with sticks, sports where skinny men and butch women try to hit really small balls with really long sticks, sports where tall men try to put brown balls through laundry bags, and sports where drunken Canadians on ice skates hit each other and something resembling a hamburger patty with long sticks.

But say what you will about American sports: when our favorite NASCAR driver loses a race, you don't see thousands of rednecks trying to run each other over in the parking lot afterwards.

Sadly it seems that in Europe sports can be pretty Serious Business to the point where people can be really badly hurt.

From The Office

Earlier this week, my French coworker told me:

That was a great email. It had the right balance of annoying American optimism and vague 'fuck off' tone.

I took it as a compliment.

On Water

Dear My New Fellow Countrymen,

I love you dearly but there's something very important we must talk about.

This is the 21st century, and in the last 100 years or so we've accomplished great things as a species: we can fly, and trips that used to take months now take hours. We walked on the moon. We invented the Internet.

And more importantly, we created a device that allows both hot and cold water to come from the same faucet in a real mixture to prevent your hands from either burning or freezing.

Take note, friends. This truly is the way of the future!

Learning About My New Home

Even though I haven't even left the country yet, several of my co-workers have wished me a Happy Guy Fawkes Day. I think it's kind of interesting that people in my new home celebrate the foiling of a treasonous plot against the King by setting off fireworks, while people in my old home celebrate the success of a treasonous plot against the King by setting off fireworks (on July 4.)

Wikipedia offers the full text of the traditional rhyme about Mr. Fawkes:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up King and Parliament.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

You celebrate by throwing effigies of Fawkes on little bonfires and begging for money for fireworks.

I kind of wish I was there for this, but it'll make a good post for next year after I've been in London a while.