Of Latin Rites and Times New Roman

It's been over a week since our matriculation at the Sheldonian Theatre in the center of Oxford. Historically, the center of Oxford has been at Carfax, and this is still what would seem to be the central crossroads of the contemporary city; the university, however, has its noumenal center in the cluster of buildings that include the Radcliffe Camera, the Sheldonian Theatre (where degrees are conferred as well), and of course the Bodleian Library. The last-named is probably the closest one can get to a symbolic "heart" of the university (it's certainly not the fortress-like buildings of the University Offices in Wellington Square); the library card for the Bodleian also doubles as one's university ID. The Bodleian is an uplifting sight with yellow light pouring from behind the large window panes at dusk under the spires, and it's also a cosy idea to know that every book published in the United Kingdom is sitting somewhere there. This cosiness of the idea doesn't necessarily translate into practical terms, though: the Bodleian is far from being one of those libraries where you can spend countless hours wandering amidst shelves of books (it's not Barnes and Noble, after all): upon entering what you find are rows of computers running the arcane Telnet program, which the library still uses to search for books; this has neither the charm of a card catalog or the convenience of modern computer interfaces. The book, when you do find it, is likely to be "withdrawn", which is the Bod's equivalent of a museum's piece being in storage rather than on display. You fill out a request for the book, and make an appointment to read it in one of the reading-rooms. The reading-rooms are admittedly quite nice (I'm partial to the Upper Camera), but I'm an impatient person; I'll make an appointment to see my dentist, say, but to schedule to consult a book is somewhat laborious. Nor is the status of the Bodleian as a "deposit library" (by law, every book, journal, newspaper, magazine, etc., published must send them a copy) quite as watertight as they would like one to believe: these days, "publishing" can take many forms and its definition is becoming quite fluid, so people from across the disciplines have been commenting on how the Bodleian has been missing out on many key documents, even those which are in print. Let's see how they deal with the new publishing industry being created by the likes of lulu.com. Despite these criticisms I can never cross Radcliffe Square without thinking of the miles of books lying in the subterranean tunnels, ready to be conveyed the great sprawl of the Bodleian through the network of pneumatic pipes.

The University of Oxford does seem to be highly modernised, with every lecture I've attended so far being accompanied by a Power Point presentation as de rigueur; but one would think that a university of this calibre would also have cutting-edge IT technology. What I've seen so far seems to be the hegemony of Microsoft and its tell-tale harbinger and fingerprint, the ominprescence of Times New Roman. I am still reeling from the amount of Times New Roman I am subjected to on a daily basis; does anyone not think of varying the typeface at some point? I've never been a great fan of sans serif typefaces but coming home to my beloved Mac I am tempted to obliterate all the Times-related font sets from my computer's Font Book to salve my battered sensibilities. I suppose 800 years of history might be dragging the University down a bit, but if it pedalled a little harder, perhaps it could get beyond Windows 2000.

So, then. The verb "to matriculate" comes from the Latin "matricula", which means "stand around freezing your ass off in ridiculous costume on a drizzly Saturday morning". Oxford is one of the last universities to actually keep the tradition of the ceremony, which is to physically present oneself before the (in our case, Vice-Chancellor as representative of the) university, who was supposed to take down one's name in a notebook of sorts and thus recognize one as a member of the university. So in full battle gear (black gowns flapping in the wind, tassels a-twirling) we all filled the Sheldonian to the rafters for the ceremony, which lasted all of about seven minutes (including the pipe organ fanfare). The Sheldonian isn't a very large theatre, and there are thirty-six colleges, so everyone is hustled away quickly for the next batch to enter. But the real induction into Oxford, in my opinion, is the moment when you learn how to ride your bicycle while carrying a stack of books and balancing an umbrella in the rain.

The Bodleian Library
www.lulu.com

Serenity, or Firefly writ larg(ish)

"Serenity" opened in the UK this weekend. Despite the good press the movie has been receiving all around, especially among British critics, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I walked into the Odeon screening room in Oxford (where the screen is about the size of a large television set). I've always had great admiration for Joss Whedon (as evidenced by my unabashed admiration for the Buffy series, supra) but even on Buffy and especially on Angel he has always been uneven as well as unpredictable, and I was imagining the myriad ways in which he could fail to deliver.

But I needn't have worried: "Serenity", whether you've seen the "Firefly" episodes on DVD or at a newcomer to that universe, does not fail to deliver; not only is it coherent as a movie, but it manages to pick up roughly where the series left off, which means that for a fan it doesn't too much time on what we already know yet manages to introduce the premises of the futuristic setting and the characters in a few deft strokes. What is missing, of course, is the cosy familiarity one develops with the characters which is perhaps the biggest advantage of television over feature films: one comes to think of the "Friends" cast as one's friends; the detectives on "CSI" as one's collleagues at the workplace; "The West Wing" is at once a workplace drama and a family drama, with the president as a father figure presiding over a house. And (returning to "Serenity") anyone with any familiarity with Joss Whedon at all will know that he never has "clean" victories but that there always is a price, so I wouldn't count it as a spoiler to say that I knew even as the movie began that not all of them would make it; but I nevertheless lurched in my seat when it happened.

The other reviews I've been reading have focused a lot on the transition to "the big screen", but because of the venue where I happened to see it, four feet away from a small screen, UK projection dimensions (there's a difference in aspect ratio, i.e., a strip lopped off the top and bottom) in a theatre without DTS nor Dolby decoding (rather like the Mac, which uses its own mixdown even if you play a Dolby disc on it), it felt like a good, long episode: a season-ender, say. So is it the new Star Trek or even the new Star Wars? No, no. But I think it's fair to say that it might be the new Joss Whedon, which also does less disservice to all concerned.

Let England be England

England again! In London, where I stayed for a few nights seeing friends and squandering away a fortune (it's a wonderful city in which to pretend to be a millionaire; a friend and I met for lunch at the cafeteria-like but scrumptious Nobu for the £50 set lunch) I put myself up at the Lanesborough, having been put off by horror stories about the now-shabby rooms and deteriorating service at good old Claridge's. The Lanesborough is now my favorite hotel in London: even if you know that its old country-house feeling is complete artifice, since it doesn't have the pedigree of, say, the Connaught, which is far too masculine and lacks the femininity that used to be Claridge's edge [that was supposed to be a genitive; note to self: find out possessive form for such names]. Summer is thankfully over and even in Chelsea only those who truly spent a fortune on their slimming and tanning are making last-ditch attempts to expose skin in the increasingly chilly weather.

A few tears, well-shed, for my Sloane Avenue flat; but upwards and onwards! To Oxford this time, and the full-fledged adventure of full-fledged university life! Actually, it has already caught me up in such a swirl that I haven't had time to blog since I arrived. And there's so much to tell...but bedtime calls if I'm to be sentient for the lecture at 10 am tomorrow morning.