Cambridge: September 2004 Archives

I’m entering B-school with one eye open.

See, Mod gave me a Daruma on our last visit to Oakland. It’s a Japanese thing, Daruma, a paper-mache figurine of the monk Bodhidharma. He’s a round, roly-poly guy, the backstory being that Bodhidharma’s arms and legs fell off after he meditated for seven years straight.

Daruma dolls have no eyes - it’s up to you to paint them in, yourself. One eye gets painted when you start working towards a goal, and the other eye can only be painted if and when you complete that goal. Unsurprisingly, it’s mostly a New Year’s thing, though I’ve heard Japanese politicians make a big show of drawing Daruma eyes during political campaigns.

School’s started. Which means our once-blind Daruma now sits winking by the telly, and I vaguely suspect he’s watching more BBC than he should.

(And a year later…)

Just north of the Cam, past Magdalene College, is Kettle’s Yard. From four 17th and 18th century cottages, Jim and Helen Ede built foundations for a single house, and a singular home.

It’s an art museum, now - though I suspect Mr. Ede (himself the curator of the Tate in London, once) would agree that the scale and setting make it something altogether different. Above all, Kettle’s Yard remains simply a home: you need to tug on the doorbell to enter, and once inside, you can grab a seat anywhere, and pull a book from the shelves. And that’s how it went for us, yesterday afternoon.

Of course, art is the big draw: when you’re a networked fellow like Mr. Ede, I suppose it was easy to gather up pieces from ‘artist friends’ like Ben Nicholson, Gaudier-Brzeska, even Miro and Brancusi. However, the personal authenticity of the collection is what impresses the most — knowing that behind every piece was afternoon tea or a handshake, the ties of friendship and patronage.

You can feel how the house was all slowly assembled, truly built — not simply bought at Sotheby’s. In that sense, Kettle’s Yard reminds me of Jim Thompson’s house in Bangkok: like the organic shell of an extraordinary life. That, and then there’s the fun of traipsing through the tiny bedrooms, hallways, and winding staircases, so unlike the squared halls of most museums.

Best of all? At Kettle’s Yard, it’s the arrangement and selection of every piece which matters, not cash value; some of the most important features are pebbles, plates, and lemons (just ask), each item placed properly, and just so.

Oh — and it’s free. Next time it really rains, I’m heading back.

I bought my gown last week. I couldn’t help but grin, trying it on: the long robes are probably one of the more peculiar and quintessential images associated with Oxbridge colleges.

Actually, the first time I glimpsed a formal Cambridge robe was in Berzerkley, of all places; one of my undergrad professors was a Cambridge (and Oxford) don, and at graduation he’d ambled onto the stage wearing colorful garments which looked like a cross between a rodeo clown’s outfit and the Vatican Guard uniform. Amidst all our cookie-cutter rental-quality black robes, and the tattered business-class upgrades worn by most Berkeley profs, his outfit was… brilliant.

Americans generally associate gowns only with graduation; here, it was a more important part of your daily outfit, once upon a time. I needed to purchase mine before school starts (T-minus 2 weeks, ack) because it’s still mandated for nightly dinner at my college.

Thankfully, I won’t need to strut about town always looking like Zorro, or a wayward Renaissance Faire vendor - graduate-level gowns are simple, uniform black affairs - and anyhow, I gather it’s a thing to keep stashed in a locker or backpack right until you walk into Formal Hall. Perfect compromise, in my book.

All it takes is a little Murphy’s law: the day after local papers led with “WETTEST SUMMER IN 50 YEARS”, this place starts feeling like California. In a sunshine-y sense, that is.

We took a most civilized stroll out of town yesterday, and walked alongside the river Cam towards Grantchester. The footpath dips and rises through hyper-pastoral meadows, and it offers exactly the sort of scenery you’d hope for: grazing livestock, starry-eyed punters, and rolling farmland in the distance. It’s quiet, verdant, and all feels (relatively) isolated, especially for a route that starts just twenty minutes’ walk from the city center.

An hour later, we stumbled across Grantchester, and its tea-room of some repute: The Orchard. As the name implies, the outdoor grounds are sprinkled with apple and pear trees; Az and I entered from an adjacent meadow by first squeezing past some cows and then climbing a cattle-fence. I’d hoped to congratulate myself on my little discovery, but turns out this is a place Cambridge students have flocked to for 100 years; The Orchard even offers a glossy brochure listing its famous tea-takers, beginning with Virginia Woolf and ending with John Cleese.

Closer to my own heart, they claim Alan Turing ‘first conceived’ the idea of Artificial Intelligence whilst strolling from Cambridge to The Orchard. I don’t entirely buy it: I’m no genius, but do I spend an inordinate amount of time daydreaming about computers, sci-fi, and othersuch nerdworthy nonsense, and I can say that bits, bytes, and computer cognizance were the last thing on my mind during that pleasant walk. To me, it’s like arguing that Thoreau penned Walden whilst riding the London Underground. Doesn’t jibe, somehow — but, then again, I’m no genius.