back-dated posts 6/4

6/4/2004 The fifteen-year anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre?
11:00AM I’m up later this morning. I intentionally tried to sleep as long as possible, and now I’m on the move again, trucking my stuff from Glasgow Central up to Buchanan Bus Station. I put my stuff in the lockers and head out for Glasgow Cathedral. Unfortunately, I locked up my jacket and now the sky is getting cloudy and the wind is picking up. It’s chilly, and I wonder if I’ll be able to stay outdoors for very long.
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Glasgow Cathedral is beyond impressive. Princeton’s cathedral has nothing on this. The stone work is weathered to a deep hue, and the atmosphere inside is beyond words. I found the strangely garish stained-glass representation of Adam and Eve in purple in the west window. I also found that Glaswegians are extremely friendly.
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And behind the Cathedral, occupying the highest point in town, and over the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is the Necropolis: A city for the dead. An enormous, windswept cemetery that keeps watch over the city of the living.
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Next, I went to GoMA. Yup, that’s what they call it. The Gallery of Modern Art. A neo-classical building with a hip and quirky collection of Scottish art since 1980s. My favorites: Roderick Fagan’s photographs of ‘weapons’, actually schoolroom implements of bullying, with wry descriptions modeled after descriptions of ancient weaponry. Rubber band slingshots, ‘pish balloons’ (piss water balloons!), the venerable lighter and aerosol ‘flamethrower’ etc, etc. Another interesting work was by Andrew Bick: multiple layers of painting and translucent wax which produce as hazy and 3-D look.
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4:40PM Waiting at the Glasgow bus station, I shared a moment of consternation with a curly-haired Scottish woman waiting for her boyfriend because our bus didn’t show up on time.
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Edinburgh: just checked into the Globetrotters Hostel, way way waaaay outside of the city center. It’s a huge dorm-like place. . . I just hope the showers are warm enough.