Michael and I arrived in Spain under cover of night, having just cheated Ryan Air out of a significant amount of money.  They wanted to charge each of us over a hundred euros for our checked luggage being over the weight limit (the limit, incidentally, is, like, zero kilos, and I now understand how this airline makes all its money).  So we stuffed all of our heaviest items (i.e., stacks of books) into our wee carry-ons, which now took on an absurd weight-to-volume ratio, like props in a slapstick movie.  Michael, meanwhile, was wearing six layers to minimize his luggage content.

Our journey together became defined by such hijinks.  We began to keep track of our schemes.

   [ Our Lady of Hotel Simon ]

Free of the torments of Stansted, we arrived in a perfect Seville.  I returned after eight (eight!) years to the lovely Hotel Simon, and although no, the lady at the desk did not know off-hand where the nearest karaoke bar was, she was more than willing to investigate for us after giving us a raised eyebrow.

We did not end up karaoking, mercifully.  Instead we wandered the streets, dining on soul-saving tapas and wine and giddily basking in the shadow of the Giralda, its Almohad interlace as demure as it is elegant.  This was our first taste of what we were searching for--the whispered traces of al-Andalus.  Already drunk on Spain, we turned a dark corner and stumbled upon a dream: a large group of muscled Sevillians hoisting a gilded baroque platform over their heads -- they were practicing for Semana Santa.  In a few weeks those platforms would be topped by massive painted wooden statues narrating the Passion -- Christ on the donkey, Christ kissed by Judas, Christ Crucified, Christ resurrected.  Mournful horns blasted from a portable radio so that the men could practice keeping time -- a hint of the grand marching bands that would take over the streets during holy week.

  [ Intersecting arches, Patio de las Doncellas ]

The next day we went looking for Pedro the Cruel's ghost in the Alcazar, only to find art that transcended the supernatural: dizzying stucco arabesques, optically illusive tilework, romantically swaying wisteria.  I found tiny fists clutching flowers in the arcading of the Patio de las Doncellas, the smallest traces of human presence in an otherwise aniconic courtyard.  Not to mention a good example of medieval humor.

Nearly out of time, we hurried to the Cathedral, a gothic colossus standing on the grave of the great mosque (which survived for almost two hundred years after the Christian conquest of the city).  We lied about our ages to get in at the discounted rate -- scheme number two.  We were just proud of ourselves for lying to get into church.  I tried and failed to find the tomb of Fernando el Santo -- where are they keeping him these days?  In the end we triumphantly climbed the thirty-four ramps to the top of the Giralda and gazed out at beautiful Seville -- at the tiled domes and the rooftop pools and the orange trees -- until the bells rang right by our heads and we nearly jumped out of our skin.

 
[ cathedral gargoyle ]

Thirty-six hours in one of the greatest cities of Europe was not enough, so we decided to move here.  Immediately post-dissertation, we think.

[Sevilla pictures here]

Dissertation research jaunts, I have decided, are best bookended by some quality visits with loved ones and babies.  Thus I opted to fly in and out of London rather than Spain in order to visit my bestest friend Mrs. Fanning and the Blessed Arrival from Heaven, Miss Poppy.  Recent encounters with humans of the pre-verbal type have confirmed for me that people do indeed develop personalities more or less immediately.  When considering the Poppy, the most appropriate and characteristic word is "serene".  She´s a little Buddhita.  She never wails, merely cries a bit until her (always justifiable) needs are met.  Sometimes when you hold her she gets a little bored and starts to fuss a bit; flip her over and she´s fine.  Best of all, she uncomplainingly allows me to perform whatever sartorial experiments strike my fancy.



I can see myself turning into a sort of punk Anne Geddes someday -- God help any children I might ever have.  We had taken the Poppy to the neighborhood pub in Swindon on St. Patrick´s Day -- an unforgivably boring holiday in England, at least from what I saw; perhaps second only to the fourth of July.  Said pub, the Tawny Owl, boasts local Arkell´s ales and an outside patio with what they call "features" -- including a water wheel, large decorative agricultural equipment and so forth.  Signs abound warning "No climbing on this feature".  We found the use of the word "feature" wonderfully quaint, in the way Americans find most English things quaint, I suppose.  (Ah, a roadside sign that reads ¨Queues Likely¨ -- how delightfully quaint!  Not to mention thoughtful, warning us of potential traffic jams.)



We ended up talking a great deal about babies, and I thought a lot about how much I prefer babies to dissertations, and how pleasant (and horrible, I know, I know) it would be to retire from dreaded academia and turn my attention to accessorizing a miniature person.  I lamented to Mrs. Fanning about how selfish I am, how I don´t want to get fat, how I can barely keep myself together let alone another human being.  She agreed that pregnancy is indeed pretty awful (though for the record, she´s looking fabulous), but that... and I quote.. I should have respect for what my body is capable of.  That was really quite a dawning moment for me.  Hmm.

That assumes, of course that my body IS capable of reproduction -- I have yet to be convinced.

We spent about five seconds in London to pick up Poppy´s American passport.  (She´s a dual citizen!  My lifelong dream!)  While family Fanning went into the Embassy, I spent an hour at a cozy, decades-old Italian cafe called The Lucky Spot, which sported the following poster in the window, a facsimile from World War II.  I really wish they had propaganda like this in New York, rather than the neurosis-inducing "if you see something say something" nonsense.  This is henceforth my personal mantra and dissertation motto:

The minute I got off the plane in India... I can't remember the last time I was quite so happy.  Well, I suppose it was the day after the election, but regardless, the point being, I love love love India.  The saris, the taxis, the streetcows, the inexplicable spiced quality of the air.  I missed it.  New York thinks it is a place of extremes, but it is a flatline of pastoral banality compared to Bombay.

Emerging from the airport with my suitcase and seeing that single dense sea of bodies waiting to pick up their loved ones, each face anxiously anticipating that flash of recognition -- I almost started laughing and crying at the same time, what with the delirium and the excitement.  Zubin looked ridiculous with the combination of 70s Bollywood facial hair and hip NYC attire -- but finally finding the one body in that huddled mass ready to scoop me up was such an amazing feeling of relief and belonging.

As someone who has lived in New York since pre-2001, I was not really afraid to be in Bombay again so shortly after the attacks (26/11 is what they're calling it in the papers).  If full-scale war had broken out between India and Pakistan that would have been another story, but as things were I decided to assume that the level of potential danger is really no higher now than it ever is, and in fact this was probably an ideal time to go to India since security would doubtless be so heightened.  (And it often was -- like when I had to show my passport something like 11 times at the airport on the way home.)



But then Zubin decided he wanted to go to Leopold's, and I got really uncomfortable.  It wasn't a fear of being victim to a second attack, but rather a fear of brushing up against young ghosts.  The deaths were too fresh to be historicized in my mind, and I had no desire to immerse myself in an open wound.  Surely particles of blood remained, and bulletholes had yet to be patched up; I felt no need to insert myself into Recent Tragic Events (cue memories of souvenir "Ground Zero" baseball caps on New York tourists).  But I went with him anyway, if only with the intention of supporting their business in the wake of a presumably economically debilitating event. 

The place was packed.  We barely got a table.  It was full of Indians, and full of tourists (many of whom had their children in tow) all chatting away without a hint of solemnity.  Perhaps there was a terror-tourism aspect to the crowd level -- Adi told us that when Leopold's first reopened, Indians came from miles out of town just to see the bulletholes -- but by and large this appeared to be a gawk-free assemblage of locals and tourists, hungry for lunch and thirsty for the kind of weak lager that hot countries specialize in.

Adi Uncle took good care of us, tooling us around town.  We spent much of my 24 hours in Bombay visiting the Parsi relatives, including Zubin's 98-year-old grandmother.  Her senses are significantly impaired but she knew Zubin as soon as he walked in, and rasped out his name.  He is her only grandchild.  She seemed to recognize me too, and we shared a sweet moment of enthusiastic hand-clasping.  The family apartment is full of beautiful wooden art deco furniture that Zubin's grandfather bought new.  The only thing that seems to have changed in the apartment is the view outside.  The sea, once nearby, even viewable from the neighborhood, is now blocked by a barricade of high-rise office and apartment buildings.  It kind of reminded me of Williamsburg.

A list of life-changing -- or at least life-enhancing -- events of the past few months, which I wish I had time to write about in detail.  Maybe I'll start posting some photographs and narrate pictorially.  In chronological order:

1. Attended (with evilvic) a very intimate living room concert given by Kristin Hersh, and afterward cooed with her over pictures of her kids on her husband's iPhone.  (Are we friends yet?)
2. Saw My Bloody Valentine, and nearly died by aural assault.
3. Saw Echo and the Bunnymen perform Ocean Rain at Radio City Music Hall.
4. Got married.
5. Had a delightful honeymoon in New Orleans.
6. Witnessed Barack Obama elected president.

Hey, awesome, so I like totally almost got into a fistfight in a bar last night!  The boyfriend and I decided to go out to a "nice dinner" for our anniversary.  Dazie's, our local favorite Italian, is closed on Mondays for August so we opted to go to Bamonte's in Williamsburg, where neither of us had ever eaten before.  It's a classic Brooklyn place -- elderly waiters in tuxes, elaborate light fixtures, a pink-and-black bathroom -- very fifties fabulous.

The food was pretty disappointing, but even worse was the high-decibel drunken birthday bash being conducted two tables over, which featured the 40-something birthday boy spouting out non-sensical racist rhetoric for the entire restaurant to hear.  It was pretty highly refined stuff, e.g. "Do you know what Obama's middle name is?  DO YOU KNOW what OBAMA's MIDDLE NAME is?  If you google Obama, you know what comes up? 'I am a fuckin MUSLIM', that's what comes up." 

I started to fantasize about all the things I could do to him -- spill a glass of red wine over his head on my way to the bathroom, whisper to him in his ear "happy birthday, you ignorant fuck -- I hope it's the last one you ever have."  I was fuming and Zubin as usual was taking the Buddhist high road, insisting that we "not let him get to us".  Then birthday boy started bitching about all the Hindus in Morristown (Zubin's cousins live in Morris Plains, thank you very much), and we finally decided to take our bottle of wine and finish the evening at the front bar in front of the Yankees game. 

I have a temper.  I felt like I had to do something or I'd obsess the entire following day.  Then it struck me -- I suck with verbal confrontation but I'm not so bad with the written word; I'll make him a birthday card!  I took a bar napkin, folded it in half, drew a cake with candles on the front, and on the inside wrote "Happy Birthday!  And thank you for ruining my special anniversary dinner with your ignorant racist bullshit.  PS, Everyone knows what Obama's middle name is.  The more intelligent of us aren't too worried about it."

It was tempting to wish him dead, but I figured I might have a better chance of making an Italian-American feel bad if I aimed for the Catholic guilt.  Although the smarminess of the PS may have undone that.

The timing was close -- the drunks started to saunter out of the restaurant just as I was finishing it, so I had to go outside to deliver my card.  I handed it to him and scurried off -- I guess he at least saw the picture on the front because I heard him drawl "Aw, thanks, that's so sweet of you..."  Neither he nor his thugs returned to kick our ass.  They all sped off in huge black SUVs.

I couldn't help feeling like Zubin and I were a sub-sub-plot in a Sopranos episode, a la Kennedy and Heidi -- "Hipster Couple #1", perhaps.  "Bi-racial liberal arts-grad pair".  Or maybe "Gentrifiers 1 and 2".

Stansted to Munich early in the morning. Desire for exploration immediately squashed in favor of a three-hour nap at the Hotel Blauer Bock.  A taxi driver informs us that our hotel's name has a double meaning, "blue buck" being slang for "drunk old man".

Since we slept through museum hours we spend our day wandering and browsing in shops.  Munich is pleasant -- almost generically pleasant -- very clean, very...well, European.  Zubin is in love with it for some reason; I think it's the food.  Our best meals of the whole trip are in Munich.


[ Munich Residence (palace) ]

For lunch we dine on phenomenal vegetarian schnitzl at a hipstery restaurant called Hopfeck.  When we ask about the portion sizes the cute Williamsburgy waiter prevents us from over-ordering; apparently the plates are huge.  "I know how you Americans are," he says.  But I thought it was Americans who were over-portioned and hence morbidly obese!  I suppose the Germans must have evolutionarily advanced stomachs. 

At dusk we end up at a little outdoor cafe on the edge of the Hofgarten, drinking haus wein and listening to a dinner opera hired by a private party.  Surely this is the apex of contentment.  Have I mentioned how much I want to move to Europe?  Then we wind our way to Prinz Myshkin for (gasp!) Tofu Stroganoff.

 
[ Diana Temple, Hofgarten ]

Next day, I have to choose between going to the Glyptothek and the Modern Art Museum.  I choose the latter, partially because I prefer the twentieth century to the BC, and partially because it seems appropriate to see German expressionism whilst in Germany.  They cover the avant-garde movements fairly well -- Die Brucke and Der Blaue Reiter are there, but Dada and the Bauhaus are represented only by painting (as per Pinakothek tradition, I suppose).  Regardless, it is a special experience to be surrounded by a roomful of Noldes, then Kirchners, then Beckmanns and so on.

In the afternoon I go to Vienna, and Zubin stays behind so he can finally eat some real sausage.

Munich pictures here.

Another cold, rainy day in London.  We only had time for one more museum so I picked the V&A.  I now feel like a complete idiot for not going here when I was studying abroad (actually, I did, but it was for a special exhibition on poster art so I saw nothing of the permanent collection), as this is where all the medieval stuff is.  But the cast courts were even better than the real thing:  I was not anticipating walking into a room and suddenly being confronted by Trajan's Column, the Silos reliefs, and the Portico de la Gloria all together in an art historical jumble.  The whole experience was all very wunderkammer.  We also visited the "China Design Now" exhibition, which does a good job of balancing popular, underground, and official culture.  It made us want to go to China.  By the time we got to the Islamic wing I was completely visually oversaturated.  Walking between vitrines full of ceramics and metalwork, I found myself starting to feel really panicky, along with that thorn-in-throat sensation of being about to cry.  I realized that I was having a PTSD flashback to studying for orals, and should probably just give up and leave.

    
[ V&A -- L: cafeteria ; R: courtyard ]

So we went to Harrod's -- I'd never been there before, but had heard wondrous tales of its majestic food and dessert courts.  I hoped to purchase a scarf (I'd made the mistake of packing for a summer vacation), but could not even afford their cheapest one.  Mrs. Fanning and I gazed at very large Cartier diamonds.  After a few minutes the level of wealth being transferred all around me started to make me feel mentally violated.  So instead of focusing on the merchandise I studied the customers instead.  I was fascinated by the number of Arab shoppers -- I wonder if the demographics would have been much different had I visited Harrod's back in 1998.  I expect so.  As if to highlight this transformation, near one of the entrances was an elaborate promotion for apartments being sold in Dubai, featuring a scale model of the entire city.  But the highlight of my Harrod's experience was seeing the Princess Diana and Dodi memorial: life-size bronze renderings of the couple, looking like they're on ecstasy, each with an arm outstretched toward a flying sea gull (?!), which is obviously leading them upward toward Heaven.  It's all an apparently serene scene until you notice the capital letters emblazoned on the pedestal, which read "INNOCENT VICTIMS".  Oh, the kitsch of it all!  (I was too stunned to even take a picture of it, but there are good ones on Flickr.)

We met up with Mr. Fanning at the end of his work day and drank fabulous ales in Chiswick at a pub called the Bull's Head -- easily one of the coziest bars I've ever been in.  It's right on the Thames, and when you sit in the lower level you actually feel like you're submerged in the river.  Then across the street for a nice dinner at Annie's, where I learned that champagne cocktails garnished with candied rose petals are a very good thing. 

I did NOT want to go back to New York.  Not for all the summer sun in the world.

We had a lovely Sunday night double-date with the Fannings at the Cinema Haymarket.  We saw Brief Encounter, a dramatic adaptation of a Noel Coward film done by the Kneehigh Theatre Company, which is based in Cornwall (me olde ancestral home).  It was recommended by David Walker, who saw and enjoyed another one of their productions with one of his London Programs.

In terms of set design and production, it was maybe the best play I've ever seen. I spent the majority of my time in the theater actively smiling -- there was constantly some kind of onstage marvel to respond to.  But rather than utilizing "special effects" per se, the extravagance of the production lay in these transparent, charmingly heavy-handed magic tricks.  The leads, at one point, swung from chandeliers operated by the other actors via pulleys in full view of the audience.  A rowing scene involved an actor waving a cherry blossom branch in front of the boat's passengers. "What a lovely branch," cries one of the leads, to which the prop-yielding actor coyly replies "thank you" and winks at the audience.  There was no trompe l'oeil about any of it, just brash (yet economical) inventiveness.

The production played up the play's (and venue's) cinematic origins brilliantly, occasionally lowering a screen that showed pre-filmed, flickery black-and-white projections.  The actors were able to literally step into the screen, their bodies immediately transforming into two-dimensional celluloid specters.  It was pretty breathtaking.  The issue of adaptation is interesting here – when switching between media, how is language and performance altered from screen to stage and back to screen again? (Brief Encounter is actually a play based on a movie based on a play.)  Theater acting is necessarily stylized since the distance from stage to seat must be traversed, while cinematic portrayals tend to be more subtle given the close proximity of camera and subject; intimacy between film and audience is more easily achieved.  The acting in this play -- the entire production, for that matter -- aside from being theatrical, was stylized in a manner very specific to World War II-era cinematic romances, but with vaudevillian musical interludes spliced in.

These interludes were songs also written by Coward, and only rarely did they directly complement or explicate the central narrative.  Ultimately they were diverting diversions, there to entertain and to play up the "period" aspect of the play.  If there was anything wrong with Brief Encounter it was that the central narrative of forbidden romance was continuously interrupted, maybe even stifled, by these cheerful musical confections and the (secondary) characters who performed them.  But perhaps the play would simply have been too sentimental otherwise.  In any case, when the hero was crying out "I love you!" to the heroine, my brain couldn't help but cry out, "but why?  We never got to that part."  There wasn't much space between the bells and whistles for much character development.

That said, this narrative structure of melodrama alternating with joviality did allow for an interesting upstairs/downstairs dynamic and class critique, underscored by the disparity between accents and the occasional juxtaposition of different couples' romantic dalliances.  There is, after all, something terribly bourgeois about infidelity, much like divorce.  Nevertheless, I'm too soft not to cry at [er, spoiler alert?] the hero's ukulele farewell serenade.  The romance was certainly not in the play solely for ironic purposes.

So, a confection, but a brilliant one.  There were even pre- and mid-show entertainments: the 'chorus', dressed like old movie ushers (that is, bellhops), played songs in the aisles beforehand, and the cast had filmed pseudo-retro-adverts for the intermission.  And since the venue is normally a movie theatre we were allowed to snack and drink in our seats!  It's really the little things in life that make me happy.  But I'll take all the bells and whistles too.

- We stayed at a friend's flat in Brixton.  It reminds me so much of Brooklyn; I felt at home there.

- We spent Sunday morning in Southwark, walking around the empty market and attending a choral mass at the Cathedral. (Little English choir boys in ruffly high collars! Oh, the cuteness!)  We walked to the river, and the sight of St. Paul's made me teary-eyed with London nostalgia (or perhaps New York exhaustion). 

- We met up with Mr. and Mrs. Fanning at the Tate Modern.  They are awash in wedded bliss.  They informed us that he just got a job offer so they are shortly moving to... wait for it... Luxembourg.  The beauty of it is that Mrs. Fanning can't really get a job until she masters either French or German, so she's basically going to be a housewife whose only main obligation is study languages.  Jealousy!  But how excited am I about having an excuse to go to Luxembourg?!

- My favorite moment at the Tate was inside the galleries, in front of this window:
A young mother stood before the window with her toddler in his pram, and said to him "Look, it's raining -- everyone has their umbrellas."  To which he replied (and you must imagine this with the two-year-old's English accent), "I don't want an umbrella, mummie! I want to get all dirty and for the rain to wash me away!"

- We saw a great play, Brief Encounter (review to follow) and afterward met up with the fabulous Adam Toy, who we befriended at Diajeng and Gustav's wedding in Indonesia a few years ago.  He took us to a good pub near Leicester Square called Salisbury, which has a charming menu featuring connoisseurial descriptions of mediocre beers.  E.g.: "Fosters, Australia, 4.0% -- Its full malt character on the mid palate blends well with a delicate creaminess and crisp, clean hop finish, creating a perfect balance to the beer. An ideal drink with Chicken Caesar due to creamy balance and cleansing effect."

[London pictures here]

This article from Thursday's New York Times is a pretty disturbing portrait of contemporary American bridal culture.  Several months ago I read Rebecca Mead's One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, which traces the emergence of the Bridezilla phenomenon and unpacks the wedding industrial complex.  I read it partially out of my fascination with the wedding industry and partially because I was a little concerned about becoming tripped up in its seductive tulle net myself.  One of my favorite stories in the book involved a bride who insisted that all of her bridesmaids dye their hair the exact same shade of blond.  But this is nothing compared to the 'zillas who encourage their maids to get, ahem, breast implants and cosmetic procedures prior to the wedding.  Best of all is that the insult is consistently staged as a gift for the bridesmaids, a "fun spa day" when the girls can all relax and celebrate.  Apparently these poor suckers don't realize (or don't care) that the actual "beneficiary" is the woman who wants to be flanked by an army of porcelain pageant queens in her wedding pictures. 

The last paragraph is borderline heartbreaking:

And how does a bride break it to a mother-in-law that she’d love her crow’s feet to be frozen into submission? Very delicately.

“My mother is in her 60s. She’s been talking about it for so long, so I said ‘Let’s do it,’ ” said Stacey Berlin, 29, a marketing consultant, who is having a party at Aquamedica Day Spa in Long Branch, N.J.

It was trickier with her future mother-in-law. “To her,” Ms. Berlin said, “I said it as a joke: ‘You should do Botox for the wedding!’ She giggled, and then I said, ‘I’m serious. It’s exactly what you need to freshen up.’ At first she kind of laughed it off, but the more we talked about it and I told her my mom was going to do it, she said ‘O.K.’ ”

I want to hug this poor woman.  I hope she has better luck with her next daughter-in-law.

The main argument of One Perfect Day is that engaged women aren't entirely to blame for becoming superficial monsters; rather, they are at the mercy of a profit-hungry industry that feeds off of their romantic tendencies and insists that they're not having a proper wedding if they're not purchasing a monogrammed silver commemorative cake cutter.  The wedding industry's success lies in how it alters the parameters of the "traditional", and implements what Mead calls the traditionalesque.  Witness the unity candle, which is hardly a centuries-old custom.  Apparently its first recorded use was in an episode of the Young and the Restless in the seventies.  Now every couple has to buy a fifty-dollar decorated pillar of wax, or else they must not love each other very much. 

This reminds me of when I saw Celine Dion being interviewed on Oprah when I was in high school.  Oprah asked her why she wanted to have such an extravagant and expensive wedding, and with that wide-eyed, soulless gaze Celine replied "I love him big time, so I want big wedding."  I remember being struck by how nauseatingly classist it was to equate love and money so explicitly, as if poverty prevents affection from fully blooming.

Media saturation is, of course, a major culprit in this myth of the Perfect Day.  These poor botoxed bridesmaids are being subjected to these tortures ultimately for the sake of photographic and videographic documentation.  Everyone wants to be a picture-perfect bride in a fairy-tale wedding in Neverland (and thanks to Disney, this is now possible!).  When I saw them in London, I asked Andrea and Doran if there was anything they would have changed about their wedding, and both agreed that they wished they'd spent less time posing for pictures and more time just existing and enjoying the day with their loved ones.  They sometimes felt like the event was being manufactured solely for the purpose of future reminiscence, like the Japanese who 'experience' their European vacations through the viewfinder of a camcorder. 

Now, I'm very much interested in photography, and I recognize that it is a construction rather than a reflection of truth.  But I deliberately hired a wedding photographer with a laissez-faire, photojournalistic style because I didn't want to spend half my wedding day creating moments for the sake of documentary record -- or, god forbid, re-creating them.  Couples are frequently encouraged to re-enact their vows, recessional, etc. if the photographer doesn't get the perfect shot the first time around.

One Perfect Day mentions another curious phenomenon surrounding twenty-first century nuptials.  While brides routinely feel a need to turn their maids into stylistic clones, ostensibly waving the flag of mass conformity, they are (perhaps paradoxically) also encouraged by the wedding industry not to conform to a traditional, cookie-cutter wedding.  That is, there is a pressure to make your wedding special, unique: an expression of your own individual, personal style.  Unfortunately Mead doesn't theorize this as fully as I wanted her to.  Surely this must be a peculiarly American tendency -- this desire to individualize, as if your wedding was a hot consumer item that can be purchased nowhere else.  It is now customary for couples to have a "signature cocktail" for their reception, for instance.  The industry is constructing an obligation for brides to separate themselves in the minds of their guests, who are likely to attend dozens of weddings in their lifetimes.  One must, above all, be memorable.

Aside from being terribly American, I suspect this emphasis on individualization may also be a generational phenomenon.  Many of the women who are getting married now are products of the Lollapalooza age -- we prided ourselves on being outspoken and unconventional.  It seems natural that we would want our major life events to manifest that.  (This is also evident in the trend of invented and super-archaic baby names.)  And frighteningly, many new brides are Gen Y and grew up going to Hot Topic, where you can effortlessly select your personality from a wide array of available sub-cultures -- emo, punk, goth, indie... you name it, they will sell you the t-shirt for it.  Similarly, if you have a Disney Fairy-Tale Wedding, you can choose from an array of pre-selected wedding concepts to suit your personality: Is your dress a "Sleeping Beauty" or a "Princess Jasmine"?  Will your reception be "Classic Elegance" or "Simply Chic"?  It's all a delightful illusion of "personal style" veneered over a mass-marketed, factory-farmed event.

Yesterday I saw the fascinating Anh Duong, who walked alongside me out of the 77th Street station. 
Which reminded me that I should have mentioned that a few months ago I saw Samantha Power talking on her cell on the corner of Madison and 78th.  You can see her quite clearly here in these pictures I took after crossing the street.




SEE?!  I should totally get a job with Us Weekly.

I really have to hand it to Mrs. Fanning.  She was truly an inspiration.  Despite everything that happened throughout the weekend--and there was drama--she had a smile on her face the entire time, and especially on her wedding day.  She was a model of poise and grace, never getting flustered, never panicking, quietly putting the bridezilla myth to bed without any supper.

And thank god she went before me -- her wedding was a crucial test run for my own.  It was my first time walking down an aisle since I was a two-year-old flower girl, and I was entirely uncertain as to whether I would flip out and burst into tears.  Fortunately, I was so caught up in fulfilling my maid-of-honor duties that I didn't have time for emotional collapse.  I had a speech to write (of course I wrote it two hours before the wedding -- typical), dress steaming to oversee, and photo shoots to direct.  I had to make sure she ate enough to prevent fainting.  Worst of all, I had to get up at six in the morning to get my hair done.  And this was after the raucous late-night rehearsal dinner.  That is love, people.  And I must really love this chick.


[My only picture from the wedding day -- I figured I should attend to
my own duties and allow the real photographers to do their jobs.]

In the end, it was sister Laura who became the emotional wreck, which was so charmingly unexpected.  She stood just in front of me in the narthex of the church, where we prepared to walk down the aisle.  As the organist launched into the processional music, Laura peeked over her shoulder just in time to see the ushers closing the doors in front of Andrea, who would make a grand entrance after the bridesmaids had made it to the altar.  Laura lost it -- tears streaming down her face, she cried, "He's taking my sister away from me!"  I looked at her and said, "Go hug her. NOW!" hoping that this might provide some kind of emotional resolution.  So she ran back, threw her arms around a surprised Andrea, and scooted back to her place in line, just in time to walk down the aisle.  It was one of the sweetest moments I have ever witnessed.

But once she started up the aisle I could feel myself starting to lose it.  Don't cry don't cry don't cry, I chanted to myself.  Then I saw something that slapped hard, cold sense into me: I saw the photographers.  If 21st-century media saturation has taught me anything, it's that it doesn't matter what we feel inside provided we look good in the pictures.  I immediately summoned Tyra, snapped into ice-queen mode, and (according to witness accounts) sashayed up the aisle.  I knew I coudn't look at anyone -- not at Doran, not at Zubin, not at my mother, not at her mother -- because any one of them would break the spell of fierceness and cause me to melt.  I stared at the stained glass over the priest's head the entire way.

Once I got up to the altar and turned around to see the luminous bride, I let myself sob for a few minutes.  Everyone's gaze had obviously shifted anyway.  My only mistake as maid-of-honor (that I'm aware of, anyway), was that I forgot to put the veil over Andrea's face as we had planned.  But it was one of the better mistakes I've ever made.  Nothing should have blocked the radiance of that smile.  It made the day what it was.  As her mom later said, it was a good thing her grandfather was walking her down the aisle, because otherwise she probably would have run.

Everything that came after was a blur, thanks largely to the champagne intake.  I recall dancing -- a lot of dancing.  I may have eaten a little.  All in all, the entire weekend consisted of being either drunk or hung-over.  On Sunday, Zubin and I toured Philadelphia with our mothers; I felt like a zombie.  We spent Memorial Day at his mom's in Wilmington, where I crashed like I've never crashed before.  I slept for about eighteen hours.  I felt like someone had beaten me up.  I cried a lot.  I finally had my own realization that, oh my god, Andrea's not going to be there at the airport anymore when I come home to Detroit.  And, oh my god, we're really adults now.

It's a good thing I'm so damn happy for her.

My mother arrived at the Ritz-Carlton on Friday morning while I was still trying to hoist my hung-over head up from its pillow.  (As mentioned in an earlier post, even though Andrea was supposed to have a very small wedding, my mother managed to catholic-guilt-trip her way onto the guest list.)  Before she entered I could hear her gabbing and laughing with a chambermaid and bellhop in the hallway.  She started knocking on the door, hollering "My daughter is in that room and she better not be having sex!"  Ah, Mommie Dearest had arrived.

  

Within an hour we were in the Ritz-Carlton lobby, sucking down Eric Ripert's bloody marys.  The lobby of the Ritz was designed as a bad copy of the Pantheon, and it has recently been renovated with 21st century, vaguely orientalist design details -- it all makes for fabulous kitsch.  We saw Miss Laura scurrying through the lobby and called her over to us.  Much to our excitement, she informed us that her new boyfriend was going to be coming into town from Detroit, despite the fact that he was not invited to the wedding.

Brief backstory: Laura is in the process of being shipped off to the Caucasus by the Peace Corps.  Everyone knew for months that she was going to break up with her then-boyfriend, J, because of her two-year obligation abroad and lack of interest in attempting a long-distance relationship.   J was scheduled to come to Andrea's wedding anyway -- his plane ticket had been purchased.  But then Laura broke up with him a little earlier than expected.  Not because she was leaving the country for two years, but because she met someone else.  Whence the new boyfriend, S.

This will all lead up to a dramatic finale, I promise you.

In any case, it had been decided by the family that it would just be too awkward for new boyfriend S to attend the wedding given the freshness of the breakup.  (We'd all been terribly attached to J, no one really knows this new guy, etc.)  But since they can't bear to separate themselves any longer than absolutely necessary, S drove from Detroit to Philadelphia just to be with Laura, albeit secretly. 

Moving right along.  We went to St. Mark's Episcopal Church for the rehearsal that evening.  If I do say so myself, I did a pretty fine job of picking out the bride and groom's church for them.  It's a beautiful Gothic Revival structure built in the mid-19th century under the auspices of the Oxford Movement -- which means it's as Catholic as you can get without being Catholic.  It's a surprisingly cozy space -- not cold and lofty as so many Gothic churches can be, probably because the ceiling is wooden rather than vaulted (according to a church employee, it's modeled on a ship's hull, meant to bring to mind Noah's Ark). 

I cried during the rehearsal, which did not bode well for my ability to hold it together during the actual wedding.

After Laura and I practiced our sashays and the bride and groom practiced their 'I wills', we headed toward the charming Black Sheep Pub for the rehearsal dinner, which began smoothly enough but concluded in infamy.  Perhaps the trouble started when Andrea's hellion half-brother started ordering the most expensive alcohol available just because the groom was footing the bill.  This project began with Chimay (which was apparently too much for his Bud Light-accustomed taste buds) and climaxed with a bottle of newly-legalized absinthe. 

Between the beer and the absinthe, the party got wild.  Said hellion half-brother started hitting on my 55-year-old mother, which was truly revolting.  Laura gave a drunken "I love you, man" speech to the other half-brother, about how he is the bright shining star of the family.  General revelry ensued.  Soon enough, my absinthed mother whispered excitedly to me, "[new boyfriend] S is here!"  We were all atwitter with excitement about the party crasher, wondering what would happen next.  But by this time the whole family was too pleasantly toasted to be dismayed by the uninvited guest, who proved a charming gentleman indeed.  His presence did, however, lead to the evening's crowning moment.

Andrea, assuming that S would now be staying with Laura in the hotel room that the two sisters were originally sharing, decided it would be perfectly logical to stay with her fiancé that night.  She was unaware that S, in fact, had other accommodations.  Laura, hearing that Andrea intended to break with tradition by whoring it up on the night before her wedding, flew into a psychotic rage.  The alcohol, needless to say, fueled the flames.

She ran after her sister, vociferously forbidding her from staying with Doran for the night (as if it weren't bad enough that she'd invited him to her bachelorette party).  Laura then (ahem) slapped her sister across the face.  Not really hard, but hard enough to create a foley track.  Naturally, what was our bride left to do but, yes, slap her sister back.  Again, on the face.  Again, just hard enough to make a point.

This actually happened.

Claws out and apparently ready to tackle the bride-to-be, who scurried shrieking to the other side of the room, Laura was held back by (wait for it) her eighty-year-old grandmother, who grabbed her by the blouse and shouted for her to stop.  At this point I bear-hugged Laura in the hopes of preventing a broken octogenarian arm, and tried to inform her rationally that there had been some kind of terrible misunderstanding.  I then noticed that the new boyfriend was mere steps away, and it occurred to me that he was the only one in the room who would be able to subdue her.  I shouted his name, gazed intently into his eyes and said "GET HER."  I then hurtled Laura into his open arms, which thankfully tased her into a state of acquiescence.  Fortunately, I think most of the guests were too tipsy and distracted to comprehend what was unfolding.

The funny thing is, as shocking as all this sounds, this is pretty much standard operating procedure for the Burmann sisters.  This was a mere repeat of any number of fights I've witnessed between them since we were in elementary school.  It's almost like I had been in training for this very moment for the past twenty years. 

Once I had one sister under control, I checked in with the other one and explained the entire situation.  There was a misunderstanding etc etc, we can continue with the original plan etc etc, Laura loves you and just wants to have one more sleepover with you two as sisters etc etc, I'm pretty sure she will not claw your eyes out in the middle of the night etc etc.  Andrea was so cute about it, complaining not about her sister's actions, but about the obligation to stick to all the traditional rules about grooms not seeing brides before the wedding and so forth.  "I'm really not traditional!  I'm not even doing the something old new borrowed and blue!"

"Yes you are," I said.  "You just don't know it yet."

(Incidentally, our heroines spent a peaceful night together, and still love each other.)

Well, I successfully married off my best friend, Andrea, who will henceforth be known as Mrs. Fanning.  It suits her.  It required no psychological leap on my part to adjust to this name -- she was born to be a missus.  I think that I, on the other hand, may be a permanent Ms.

Naturally, one of my most important duties as MOH was the organization of the bachelorette party, which was scheduled for Thursday night in Philadelphia, two days before the wedding.  By the grace of God, Thursday just happens to be the night of the weekly Drag Show at Bob & Barbara's, a.k.a. the Greatest Dive Bar in America. 



[ The first cocktails of a very long evening ]

Miss Laura (Mrs. Fanning's sister and sole other bridesmaid) and I managed to rip the bride-to-be out of the arms of her groom-to-be just long enough to drag her down to South Street.  But it was a close call -- the pre-dinner drinks had already gotten to her, and she even had the audacity to invite her fiance along to the bachelorette party.  (Her excuse was that they "never see each other"; it apparently failed to register in her mind that he is whisking her across the Atlantic Ocean, away from us forever.)  Thankfully, his brilliant reply was "Why would I want to go to a bachelorette party?"  Smart boy. 

The cast of characters involved was a motley one: besides the bride and her two maids, we had her mother, her aunt, her underage cousin and her brother's underage girlfriend.  I had called ahead to check whether we might be able to sneak in a couple of 19-year-olds but there was too much ambient noise to have a functional conversation with the bartender.  I decided to risk it -- I was far too determined to give my best friend an appropriately inappropriate bachelorette party, whatever obstacles the gods might lay before us. 

Alas, there was a bouncer checking IDs at the door.  I hoped the parental accompaniment would suffice.  Regardless, the underage cousin somehow managed to sneak past the bouncer while he was studying ID cards.  Meanwhile I made it in safely with both Burmann sisters, the elder of which immediately caught the attention of a hot black queen in a slinky gold lamé dress.  "Is this a bachelorette party?!" she asked, doubtless tipped off by the white feather boa that I'd forced our bride to wear.  (There was also a blinking bachelorette button and a phallic candy necklace, neither of which I had anything to do with.)  Our gracious host immediately escorted us to a special table right next to the stage, which bore a sign reading "RESERVED for Miss Lisa's guests".  Score! 

It was right around this time that I noticed that half our party was missing.  I retreated and peeked out the door -- sure enough the mom, aunt, and underage girlfriend had been stopped by the bouncer due to the latter not having an ID.  They huddled confusedly on the sidewalk and told me what had happened.  I managed to maintain composure and immediately snapped into action.  "Let me go talk to the gays," I proclaimed decisively.

I scurried back in, found the hot black queen in the slinky gold lamé dress, and sheepishly begged, "Miss Lisa, I'm so sorry, but one of our friends is just shy of 21 -- is there any chance you might be able to help us out by getting her in?"  Without a word Miss Lisa stomped (fiercely) out the door, pointed straight at the 27-year-old Miss Laura, and commanded in a motherly tone, "You can't drink." 

Trying to suppress laughter, I gestured toward Tiffany, the brother's girlfriend.  "Er, no, the other one," I explained.  Miss Lisa shifted the pointy finger toward Tiffany and repeated her commandment of "You can't drink," to which we all nodded reverently.  Score! 

So we spent the evening forking over dollar bills to drag queens and downing PBR.  The range of performers was fascinating.  From a pudgy, wigless queen in short shorts named Desiree who I think may have needed a shave, to a smoking hot post-op queen in sequined pasties, we witnessed quite a range of gender performance.  Our poor bride inevitably got brought up on stage by Miss Lisa and mercilessly hazed.  She was drunk enough not to refrain from embarrassing details (confirmation of fiancé's assets, etc.) despite the presence of her mother and aunt.  At least she got a free Bob & Barbara's t-shirt out of the deal.

  

[ L: our underagers ; R: our bachelorette ]

We got unbelievably trashed.  Those of us under 40 danced our asses off after the show.  The underagers got hit on by local boys.  Miss Laura nearly impaled my right foot with her stiletto, and I immediately got the feeling that I would be limping down the aisle on Saturday.  Most importantly, Andrea had fun.
 

My brother's girlfriend is meeting Barack Obama today in Grand Rapids. 

My best friend met Prince William last week in London at a charity polo match.

I got nothin.

It has come to our attention that there is another Shannon and Zubin out there on the internet, and, even more appalling, in real life.  This came to light when I was innocently googling the words Shannon and Zubin in various combinations (i.e., procrastinating), and discovered mysterious references to a Shannon who did not sound much like myself, and a Zubin who was clearly not my own beloved.

Clearly, we only have one option when confronted with a situation like this.  THERE MUST BE A DUEL TO DETERMINE THE BEST SHANNON AND ZUBIN.  

Now, I’m willing to admit that the other Shannon and Zubin are worthy competitors.  Indeed, there are a few areas in which they may even have a bit of an edge.  

1. They have already begun reproducing, and their daughter, Mira, is absolutely beautiful. (Yes, I have seen the baby pictures.  No, this did not require creepy levels of stalking.)  Yet, this fact may also work to our advantage, in the sense that it bodes well for our own future Indo-Euro babies.  And I have a feeling that the inclusion of my Zubin’s Kashmiri blood, in addition to the Parsi, will put our genetic makeup over the top.  So just you wait.  For a year and a half, at least.
2. The Other Zubin’s father’s name is Xerxes.  Now, our Zubin’s father’s name is Jatindar: a fantastic name, truly top notch.  But we just can’t compete with Xerxes.  I mean, have you seen “The 300”?  Xerxes is, like, 30 feet tall, has a voice like a death metal bass line, and rules over many, many a minion!
3. They’re Canadian.  My Zubin actually doesn’t think this is an advantage but I grew up listening to the CBC and I know the truth: Canadians are by and large smarter than Americans, have cuter accents, and have highly refined ironic sensibilities.  

Clearly our work is cut out for us.  But I’m convinced that with some babies (apparently I must now have at least two; thanks a lot, Other Shannon and Zubin), some enhanced cuteness, and perhaps an online poll in which our friends vote for their favorite S/Z combo, we have a good chance of coming out on top here.  

On guard, Other Shannon and Zubin.  On guard.

This is why I told my father, PLEASE send me a copy to proofread before you publish the announcement.  Witness the travesty of this combination:

1. "Masters Degree"
2. "bachelor’s degree"
3. "Master’s"

People!  If you are going to talk about me, please be consistent in your capitalization and apostrophe usage!

Everyone turned 30, and everyone freaked out.  That’s the only way to explain the sudden wave of nuptial activity amongst my friends and myself.  I am in three weddings this year, with a very different role in each.  This month I'll be a maid of honor for my best-friend-since-fifth-grade, Andrea; in July I'll be a flower girl for my dear ex-roommate Tejal in Vienna; and in October it will, inevitably, be my turn to be the bride.  Actually, make that four weddings, because I'll be a bride again in December, when we have our Hindu ceremony in India (in case the first time doesn't take, as Zubin says).  My enthusiasm for wedding planning has surprised my friends, but not myself.  I’ve never really wanted to be a wife, but I've always wanted to have a wedding.  I love ritual, I love parties, and I love glamorous dresses; this is my excuse to have all three (and twice!  I love multicultural relationships!). 


[looking for the one]

Over the course of planning these weddings, I have learned more than I expected about myself and my best friend.  We are each other’s maids of honor and our approaches to this whole operation could not be more different.  She’s enormously excited about the destination rather than the process: she genuinely wants to be married, which utterly mystifies and impresses me.  She was, in fact, close to eloping in order to escape all the trouble and expense of a wedding.  She’s slowly been sucked into having a proper event, however, and I think she won't be sorry for it.  Sadly though, in the meantime she has been subjected to mad drama of a familial variety, which has partially been a result of her attempt to have a very small affair on the east coast, far from our midwestern origins.  Even her aunts and uncles aren’t invited.  My mother, however, managed to cry her way onto the guest list.  Andrea, ever eager to make those around her happy, easily agreed to include her.  Andrea informed me of this incident over email, and concluded her message with the revelatory summation: “Weddings sure are a big deal!”

At first I found this charmingly naïve.  Then I realized that we simply have two essentially divergent perspectives on what weddings are supposed to be, both of which are equally valid.  She believes that weddings are an intimate celebration of love.  She’s a romantic.  And she should be, given the circumstances under which she found her groom-elect.  I, on the other hand, have a very Irish Cath(alcoh)olic approach.  Weddings, like birthdays and family reunions, are an excuse for people to get together and drink.  They’re ritualistic not only in a spiritual sense, but also because they are part of a cycle of Major Life Events which give people an opportunity to reconnect and laugh and inspect the skyrocketing height of youngsters. 

Really, I suppose this perspective isn’t just a working-class midwestern one, but more broadly, a pre-modern one.  Maybe this is the medievalist in me, but I just don't feel like weddings are ultimately for the couple; they’re community events meant for everyone involved.*  This hit me ages ago, at Tejal’s engagement party, when she brilliantly said that one of the reasons why engagements and weddings are nice is because they remind all the older married people attending them why they had plunged into marriage in the first place.**  Reaffirmation.  Validation?  I'm trying not to be too cynical.  I'm a closet romantic.  I think my boyfriend is really dreamy, and I know we'll happy together. 

Now if only I had a dowry.

* Speaking of pre-mod, I also think arranged marriage is a really good idea, and that there should be more of them, but that’s another story.

** This was one of the Big Moments when I realized getting married wasn't such a bad idea.  The other was when Andrea's mother suggested that marriage is economically necessary should your husband ever decide to "trade you in for a younger model."

The sign listing the hours of operation at Bangkok's Grand Palace concludes with the warning "Beware of wily strangers."  Certain devious locals have this nifty trick where they tell you that the Palace is closed to the public due to a Thai holiday and you have to "hire" a native to take you inside.  What ingenuity; I love it.  There's a kind of playfulness to these interactions between locals and tourists -- the taxi driver who took us to our hotel gave us an encouraging smile, seeming almost proud of us, when we refused to let him charge twice what we offered for the cab fare.



We packed in the most touristy stuff in a single day.  The sunlight bouncing off the gold-coated palace and temple buildings seemed to make the day even hotter.  I felt dizzy and confused; the sensory overload and extreme climate exacerbated each other.  We spent some time with the emerald Buddha in Wat Phra Kaew, which was comparatively peaceful but still bustling with both the faithful and the gawkers. 

We departed and made our way past dozens of amulet sellers toward Wat Pho, which was, I think, the "temple experience" we were waiting for.  There were far fewer tourists, the sun had begun to sink, and we were able to meander at ease throughout the complex, stare dazedly at the various golden Buddhas, and get reflexology done at the massage school.  Oh yes.  I nearly converted to Buddhism by the end of the day. 

Zubin finds the image veneration so prevalent to religion here to be contrary to Buddhist teachings.  As a medieval art historian, of course, I'm not so bothered by iconophilia.  There's a reason I'm bored to tears by Protestantism.  I rather like the idea of utilizing materiality to access the divine; I suppose this is why I came out as Chalcedon compliant on the Heretic test.



The Bangkok pictures (so far) are here.