It's a bank holiday for me.
Sep. 20th, 2010 12:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikeOn Saturday I went over to Glasgow for the Open Doors weekend.
I started out in Govanhill baths. They were built in 1914, used and redone until 2000 when it closed, despite a picket line and occupation. They're now trying to raise money to reopen it, with great plans for a community kitchen, allotments on the roof, and some proper old-style community baths in the basement as there are still dwellings nearby that have no bathroom. The paint is peeling everywhere and it looks kind of awful, but it's really interesting structurally. There are places where you can see the original early 20th century tiling, and others where it's been covered up with hideous 70s paint.
I really hope it gets the funding it needs and can open. The guide kept talking about the imprtance of having beautiful buildings for poor people, that they were built for that purpose, and that her community deserved to have them kept that way rather than ignored. I nearly went to the Arlington Baths instead, which are a working baths, but it's a private members club. It would have been interesting to see a working one, and very beautiful, but less important I think.
Next up was a backstage tour of the Scottish Ballet premises. They're based in Tramway, which is a larger performing arts space. It is, unsurprisingly, where they used to house the trams. Upstairs, where the SB is, is where they stabled the horses that drew the trams. Apparently there were very very gradual stairs going up to the next floor that the horses used. The SB place is lovely, very very light. We saw the place where they make the stage flats and props, the green room (with many sofas because "dancers do a lot of lounging"), and where the "weekly boys and girls" have their classes.
The costume room had a walk-in cupboard FULL of pointe shoes, some beautiful in-process costumes and a lot of shelves of thread, including two drawers labelled "greens" and one labelled "earthy greens". The costume storage place was organised on rails for the different ballets. There was a huge mass of colours, and I was only slightly disappointed that it wasn't full of beautiful white traditional costumes. There was a rail stuffed with different brightly coloured tutus which was pleasing. When they go on tour they take their own washing machines and microwaves.
We went upstairs to the studios. The associate seniors (children who have auditioned for their Saturday programme and are basically on the career track) were having classes in pink tights and navy leotards, moving across the space in graceful attitudes. The programme lasts until they are 16/17, and there's now a degree programme that they are involved with for after that. And also a postgraduate programme for training piano players to be ballet accompanists.
The main studio is apparently the largest in Europe, and is the first time they've been able to rehearse with the whole company at once (there are 36 full-time dancers). There's something special that means that they use the light and the wind to naturally heat/cool the building. I really liked seeing the barres all along the walls. There was a large stand outside with a pile of tutus secured by their gussets in all different colours.
After the Scottish Ballet tour I TRIED to go to TRAFFCOM, the central control room for Glasgow buses, where they track buses from SPACE (probably), but I couldn't find any trace of it and the street where they said to queue was deserted. So instead I went along to the Royal Highland Fusiliers museum. They had pictures of the various Scottish regiments in uniform, and I am not at all surprised that David Niven requested not to go to a unit with trews instead of a kilt. There was a large chart showing the numbers of different ranks, and I liked that they had a schoolmaster as an important part of the army.
Next I went down to the Glasgow Police Museum. I loved the ornately decorated batons that were on display (women didn't get them for ages afterwards, and theirs were plain and shorter). They had bits of history about the formation of the forces, the uniforms and badges, and then famous incidents in which they had been involved. At the very end were uniforms and badges from around the world. Germany was the most sleek and imposing on display. I was also interested to see that the polystyrene heads-and-torsos on which the uniforms were displayed were mostly "white", but also had shades of brown for some countries, so that Iran (I think) was a vague shade of Asian, and Barbados was a light black African man. It did make me more aware that they'd chosen white for virtually everything else (even some countries that I wouldn't expect to have white members of a police force), and so the various British uniforms were all represented by white bodies.
My final stop was in the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall. It's where Stan Laurel made his debut, when he was about 16. It's a large hall a little falling to pieces, with posters and blurbs for the various acts around the wall. The acts seemed to be quite tame, though perhaps that is a) what they deemed appropriate to display to an audience of elderly people and children, and b) me not picking up on the subtleties of it at such a distance. Lots of people singing "It's a long way to Tipperary", a comic song called "Poor John", and some delightful drawings of women in men's suits.
On Sunday I went to see The Runaways, which I liked very much indeed. Kristen Stewart really reminded me of someone, and I can't work out whether it's Joan Jett, or someone else. I really need to get all the Runaways and Joan Jett music now. It made me very happy to hear it. At the end of the film they do a "what happened to the characters" bit, but they only did Joan Jett, Cherry Curry and the producer man. I would have liked to have been told about the other members of The Runaways. I bought a motnhly pass, so now I can go and see utter rubbish when I like, hurrah.
Also last week I went to see The Vaselines, which I really really enjoyed. It's the first time I've been to a gig on my own (except Kristin Hersh a few years ago, but that was sitting down and more storytelling than gig), and it was fine! I stood at the back for the first bit, and then edged closer and was at the front for the actual Vaselines. I loved everything they played, and the new stuff I hadn't heard before. They were very funny on stage. The supports were Foxgang, who I really liked and plan to download some of their stuff from tentracks as soon as I'm solvent again, and Haight-Ashbury, who I thought were good, but rather boring and a bit pretentious. I have gone all up myself with the success of actually attending a gig and not being thrown out for being clearly far too pathetic to be there, and decided to have some actual opinions.
I started out in Govanhill baths. They were built in 1914, used and redone until 2000 when it closed, despite a picket line and occupation. They're now trying to raise money to reopen it, with great plans for a community kitchen, allotments on the roof, and some proper old-style community baths in the basement as there are still dwellings nearby that have no bathroom. The paint is peeling everywhere and it looks kind of awful, but it's really interesting structurally. There are places where you can see the original early 20th century tiling, and others where it's been covered up with hideous 70s paint.
I really hope it gets the funding it needs and can open. The guide kept talking about the imprtance of having beautiful buildings for poor people, that they were built for that purpose, and that her community deserved to have them kept that way rather than ignored. I nearly went to the Arlington Baths instead, which are a working baths, but it's a private members club. It would have been interesting to see a working one, and very beautiful, but less important I think.
Next up was a backstage tour of the Scottish Ballet premises. They're based in Tramway, which is a larger performing arts space. It is, unsurprisingly, where they used to house the trams. Upstairs, where the SB is, is where they stabled the horses that drew the trams. Apparently there were very very gradual stairs going up to the next floor that the horses used. The SB place is lovely, very very light. We saw the place where they make the stage flats and props, the green room (with many sofas because "dancers do a lot of lounging"), and where the "weekly boys and girls" have their classes.
The costume room had a walk-in cupboard FULL of pointe shoes, some beautiful in-process costumes and a lot of shelves of thread, including two drawers labelled "greens" and one labelled "earthy greens". The costume storage place was organised on rails for the different ballets. There was a huge mass of colours, and I was only slightly disappointed that it wasn't full of beautiful white traditional costumes. There was a rail stuffed with different brightly coloured tutus which was pleasing. When they go on tour they take their own washing machines and microwaves.
We went upstairs to the studios. The associate seniors (children who have auditioned for their Saturday programme and are basically on the career track) were having classes in pink tights and navy leotards, moving across the space in graceful attitudes. The programme lasts until they are 16/17, and there's now a degree programme that they are involved with for after that. And also a postgraduate programme for training piano players to be ballet accompanists.
The main studio is apparently the largest in Europe, and is the first time they've been able to rehearse with the whole company at once (there are 36 full-time dancers). There's something special that means that they use the light and the wind to naturally heat/cool the building. I really liked seeing the barres all along the walls. There was a large stand outside with a pile of tutus secured by their gussets in all different colours.
After the Scottish Ballet tour I TRIED to go to TRAFFCOM, the central control room for Glasgow buses, where they track buses from SPACE (probably), but I couldn't find any trace of it and the street where they said to queue was deserted. So instead I went along to the Royal Highland Fusiliers museum. They had pictures of the various Scottish regiments in uniform, and I am not at all surprised that David Niven requested not to go to a unit with trews instead of a kilt. There was a large chart showing the numbers of different ranks, and I liked that they had a schoolmaster as an important part of the army.
Next I went down to the Glasgow Police Museum. I loved the ornately decorated batons that were on display (women didn't get them for ages afterwards, and theirs were plain and shorter). They had bits of history about the formation of the forces, the uniforms and badges, and then famous incidents in which they had been involved. At the very end were uniforms and badges from around the world. Germany was the most sleek and imposing on display. I was also interested to see that the polystyrene heads-and-torsos on which the uniforms were displayed were mostly "white", but also had shades of brown for some countries, so that Iran (I think) was a vague shade of Asian, and Barbados was a light black African man. It did make me more aware that they'd chosen white for virtually everything else (even some countries that I wouldn't expect to have white members of a police force), and so the various British uniforms were all represented by white bodies.
My final stop was in the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall. It's where Stan Laurel made his debut, when he was about 16. It's a large hall a little falling to pieces, with posters and blurbs for the various acts around the wall. The acts seemed to be quite tame, though perhaps that is a) what they deemed appropriate to display to an audience of elderly people and children, and b) me not picking up on the subtleties of it at such a distance. Lots of people singing "It's a long way to Tipperary", a comic song called "Poor John", and some delightful drawings of women in men's suits.
On Sunday I went to see The Runaways, which I liked very much indeed. Kristen Stewart really reminded me of someone, and I can't work out whether it's Joan Jett, or someone else. I really need to get all the Runaways and Joan Jett music now. It made me very happy to hear it. At the end of the film they do a "what happened to the characters" bit, but they only did Joan Jett, Cherry Curry and the producer man. I would have liked to have been told about the other members of The Runaways. I bought a motnhly pass, so now I can go and see utter rubbish when I like, hurrah.
Also last week I went to see The Vaselines, which I really really enjoyed. It's the first time I've been to a gig on my own (except Kristin Hersh a few years ago, but that was sitting down and more storytelling than gig), and it was fine! I stood at the back for the first bit, and then edged closer and was at the front for the actual Vaselines. I loved everything they played, and the new stuff I hadn't heard before. They were very funny on stage. The supports were Foxgang, who I really liked and plan to download some of their stuff from tentracks as soon as I'm solvent again, and Haight-Ashbury, who I thought were good, but rather boring and a bit pretentious. I have gone all up myself with the success of actually attending a gig and not being thrown out for being clearly far too pathetic to be there, and decided to have some actual opinions.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 02:58 pm (UTC)One of the residents was selling cakes, as apparently they have a lot of cake-makers, and she joked that she wished they could vet new residents on what skills they have. 'Childcare... that would be useful... plumbing... and yoga teachers would have to pay double to live here...' (I assume from a surfeit, rather than a prejudice.)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-24 12:43 pm (UTC)I would fail so miserably at getting into the self-build haven. Although I am not a yoga teacher, so maybe that would work in my favour.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-24 12:44 pm (UTC)