A Bird Pooped On My Leg While I Wrote The First Part Of This In The English Sun, Getting A Tan (I Was Getting A Tan, Not The Bird or Its Excrement)

It’s hard to describe Glasgow. People have tried.

I’ve (and you’ve) always thought of it, as much as you have thought of it, as a rough city. The first action of a Glaswegian in the tourist industry is to reassure the traveler that they aren't going to be given interesting facial scars by a couple locals named Iggy and Ferguson. Why is this? Maybe Glasgow is like Manhattan. (Here the author throws himself under a bench to avoid the projectiles thrown by residents of both cities.) It was rough, really rough, for a long time, and then thirtyish years ago it gave up the rough life in favor of being amazing. The difference with Manhattan is everybody knows that about Manhattan, whereas--well, the blog I wrote the first day I got to Glasgow was a statement of surprised joy at not having been knifed.

So what is it about Glasgow that still makes us think it’s so rough? Maybe Americans acquire an inherent suspicion for the city the minute they learn it isn’t pronounced “Glass Cow.” Having been there, among the not-crumbling Victorian townhouses and well-maintained cobble streets that extend to even the weirdest corners of town, the structures that imply, if not affluence, a civic-mindedness, a caring for the city by the citizens that is at odds with my idea of “rough”, I have a hard time believing the city is significantly dodgier than a Volvo.

Anyway, I had a lovely lovely time in Glass Cow. I got there at noon on a Tuesday, or “happy hour” as it’s known in the city. I forbore from drinking--even at such a socially welcoming time--opting instead to muck about in the Glasgow Modern Art Museum, which is miraculously attached to the Glasgow Public Library. I saw a Warhol Campbell Soup Can in person for the first time. There were some photos of Goldsworthy installations, next to two other Scottish natural artists. A corner on the second floor that looked out a window, had an easel and colored pencils set up, and asked you to create what you saw. I wrote a few paragraphs describing the view in lyrical prose and buggered off before anyone could get mad that I wasn’t drawing properly. If I’d been caught, I’d have said that Warhol would’ve approved; but seeing as he was intolerable in conversation, this gambit probably wouldn’t have played out well.

The highlight of the museum for me was a half-hour long film made by the dynamic Swiss duo, messrs. Fischli and Weiss. Imagine a half-hour-long Rube Goldberg machine in which the transfer mechanisms are magnetic tires, flaming gasoline, swinging sand balloons, and flying nails, the whole mechanism looking simultaneously incredibly high-budget and the cheapest thing two eleven-year-olds with time and a shed could throw together for their dad’s camcorder, and you’ll have some of the picture. I only saw the last ten minutes. Watching it through would probably feel like watching a short Tim Burton film, but with less plot and more pointy. It was cool, thought-provoking, and followed some classic rules of comedy when it came to the timing of things. Wunderbrëd, and all that.

From the museum to my lodgings in the West End. A forty-minute walk that ended in a huge, beautiful dead end of red stone and clear glass, shaped in welcoming three-story trapezoids. The hostel took up several townhouses that looked right over Kelvingrove Park, the largest and most beautiful in Glasgow. I resolved to take a spin in the park the next day, but I had an important errand to run.

ONE PAIR OF ABSOLUTELY SICK VEGAN DOC MARTENS LATER...

[The boots didn’t feel comfortable the first or second day. Today they feel pretty good. Tomorrow they’ll feel great.]

I wrote about the strange dissolving magic of city parks in the last post, and I feel like talking more about my walk in Kelvingrove Park would be retreading freshly stomped ground. I don't wanna do that.

In fact, I'd rather veer off to the fact that "Moonage Daydream" is currently playing, and gosh! was David Bowie good at making unconventional simple chord structures sound poppy and easy despite their inherent alien quality. Of course, he was also known for his alien quality, so it makes sense.

David Bowie was always proud of his chord changes.

I'm tired, and I need some rest. This post could have been written better, but I hafta totter to sleep and sleep in a bit. It's been an eight-day week and it's only Thursday. xxx