Three Cheers for Crackerfarm!

An Avett Documentary -- maybe I'll get a TV after all.

Hi Ernie!

The post in which I tell you about where I live now

I realized I never properly introduced my new digs out here in rural Fife. I'm living with, er, sorry, renting a room from my art history professor David Jones. I would give him a fake name to cover my trail, but fortunately every third man in Wales is named David Jones so I am not concerned. David Jones David Jones David Jones.

You may remember him from way back in September when I enrolled in a Scottish Furniture class and changed the course of my career from living-in-a-box to (slightly) more lucrative auction work. He's a fantastic individual and is imbued with a steady, intense passion for his subject. I am glad to call him a friend, especially when he cooks me dinner and drives me places. Keeding.

He lives in a three-story townhouse on an out of the way street in Cupar called Kirk Wynd. "Kirk" is the old Scots word for church and a "wynd" (rhymes with kind) is a narrow medieval alleyway that snakes through houses. There are plenty of wynds in Cupar, including Lady Wynd, Robbers Wynd, and in St Andrews there is the rather unfortunate Butts Wynd. Ha.

As the name suggests there is a church on my road. In fact, it is right outside my bedroom window:
I live on the third floor of the house in a room with a box bed. It is a cozy attic space that David reclaimed and made into a separate little apartment. Here is a questionable photo of Avery in the box bed which I imagine she will hate me for posting, but I ain't scared:

I've wanted a bed with curtains my entire life and I must say that it is everything I dreamed it to be and more. I will never go back. The door with my clothes hanging from it on the left goes into the bathroom which has a skylight and a mammoth bookshelf filled with old dusty books about various and sundry subjects, including New Zealand Birds and other more questionable material. Next door is my second bedroom of dreams that has a double bed and a fireplace and this view towards the centre of town. Look! Kirks as far as the eye can see!

Here is my desk. Lots of really important work is done here; online poker, googling myself, and the usual music piracy:


The rest of the house is pretty sweet. The kitchen was a maelstrom of confusion at first owing to the ancient Rayburn, a type of fire-powered stove (with actual leaping flames) used in Scottish houses circa 1902. There is no microwave and that big box on the wall is a radio from the 40's. David eats lots of things grown locally and harvested by men with names like Angus and Doogie.

Hey look, it's the other side of the kitchen:
David likes everything out where he can see it. Can you dig it?

My favorite part of the house is the back garden which contains 3 chickens, several fruit trees, flowers of the world, and about 4 metric tonnes of chicken poo. It's a nice place to drink tea and eavesdrop on the neighbors.

The big white chicken in the foreground is a tough piece of work. She flies at me when I open the back door to feed them. We have epic fights, me and that fat chicken. But I keep giving it food because to do otherwise would be cruel and unusual. Plus it would probably find a way to get inside the house and peck my eyes out in the box bed.

That bench and I are good friends. The thing in the back covered in ivy is the greenhouse, although I'm not sure what it's actually used for besides furniture storage. It's David Jones, after all.

So that's my home in Cupar. It's kind of like living in a B&B, except you have to make your own breakfast, so I guess it's just a B. The sunsets are generally remarkable:

Changing gears: I'm moving to Edinburgh when I come back from North Carolina. I put down the deposit on my flat of dreams today. It's a fantastic place on Iona Street with high ceilings and hardwood floors (because nothing says classy like no carpets). I'll have plenty of room for people to come visit, so pile in! Here's what Iona Street looked like before there were cameras (foreground):
Needless to say it looks nothing like this now, although I'm pretty certain I'll still be walking everywhere just like those people did in olden times so I can't feel too advanced. On a related note: it's 2007, where is my flying car?

The Weight of Lies

You may have noticed I enjoy a certain group of bearded rockers ostensibly called "The Avett Brothers." I like to listen to them of an evening, you know, sometimes.

I'm four weeks and some change away from North Carolina and I'm planning my concert schedule. So far I'm considering:

9/8/07 Wilmington, NC
Riverfront Harvest Festival

9/14/07 Bristol, TN
Rhythm & Roots Reunion

9/15/07 Greensboro, NC
War Memorial Auditorium

9/19/07 Towson, MD
Recher Theatre

Who's with me?!*

*Editor's note: Jamie

In unrelated news, I made curry and something called Eggplant delight. Curry was delightful, Eggplant not so. I've had the last two days off from work due to the rail line being cut so I've had plenty of time to waste on pursuits I would otherwise scorn. Like baking. On a similar note, I cannot wait to eat some taco bell.

I've been spending a lot of time reading articles on the internets about current events. Hey, a lot has been happening while I've been riding the train with my head buried in Dumas. The Spice Girls announced tour dates, Nasa astronauts indulged in a little drunk driving, and Bear Grylls turns out to be, well, kind of a pussy.

I guess the lessons here are [respectively] you're never too washed up to rake in da cash, sometimes you can't have "just one," and to never trust anyone ever. Even if they eat live snakes.

Thoughts On A Masters' Thesis

Goya captures the spirit of the masters thesis: it catalyzes a dark period and people think you're crazy for doing it, but it sure is delicious. If only you weren't completely out of your mind insane, you'd probably be able to appreciate it on some aesthetic level, you masochistic jerkstore.

That being said, I'm 362 pages into the first of many books on my bibliography. What did Michaelangelo say? That's right, Incora Imparo. Maybe I'll have that tattooed on my forehead.

I'm in school again?! What?!

How does your garden grow?

With plenty of chicken poop, that's how.

My, What Big Tents You Have

About a month ago Julia and I helped David man the Fife Chairs tent at the Big Tent Festival in Falkland. The BTF (not to be confused with WTF) is a festival of stewardship held annually on the grounds of Falkland palace and is basically an excuse for grizzled local artists to huddle together in yurts and talk about sustainability. Oh, and save the planet.

Highlights of the BTF for me were:
- Meeting a man with mutton chops who smoked a pipe and called himself Ed.
- Eating delicious curry from Henderson's alongside a man with three fingers. Also in a yurt.
- Watching helplessly as gale-force winds toppled a massive paper maiche globe onto the craft tent.
- Explaining over and over again exactly why we had a tent about chairs and no, you can't buy them. They're historic.

We spent three days getting battered by the wind. But hey, I met Prince Charles, so I guess all was not lost. You can see pictures of the Prince (and read about how the BTF is saving the planet) by clicking here.

On a related note: Prince Charles has very rough hands; not unlike a lumberjack or professional rock-breaker. He is also quite short.

Now for some photos:

There is almost nothing as amusing as watching David Jones walk across a field in the early morning with a chair over his shoulder. The man is in his element for sure. It's kind of like what I imagined Johnny Appleseed to look like.

Julia being awesome in an ANGUS GLENS CHAIR.

Here is Julianna, Marianna, and Davidanna. Julianna is a talented stone carver, Marianna a fabulous visual artist (read about her here) and well, David likes chairs. He is sitting on my kreepie stool.

Yurts make Julia excited. As they do.
Watch Lauren interact with Scottish school children. It usually goes something like this:

Kid (in thick Fife accent): wheeyare you frum?
Lauren: The United States of America
Kid: [shocked silence] Heow old are ya?
Lauren: How old do you think I am?
Kid: Dunno, 70?

There is a new movement in Edinburgh called 'Slow Food' and man, they aren't kidding. I waited an hour for vegetable curry.

When you simply don't have time for that, try an Arbroath Smokie or dog kebab. The BTF isn't snobbish about saving the environment; if you want a burger you can have a burger.

Aforementioned paper maiche globe; post-topple and looking a wee bit squashed.

Look! Jamie came!

David looks like he is graduating from chair college. I guess he sort of did. We all look very tired and damp. Well, Julia looks good and so does David.

It was a fun weekend regardless of the weather. The festival wrapped up on Sunday night with a rollicking Scottish ceilidh and piss-up. You know, for the environment.

Wizards and Trampolinists

I worked with the associate director yesterday picking out "star lots" for the upcoming sale and making profiles for them to go on the internet. I basically scrolled through the catalog and picked out the items I would most like to own. It was like shopping without consequences. The A.D. is a Welsh trampolinist; and a two time world champ to boot. Now he is a ceramics specialist and likes to wear colourful waistcoats. Needless to say, he is fabulous.

I've been researching and writing footnotes for the Scottish catalog for the last month or so. It's pretty fascinating work, especially since most of the time my boss says "here is a cabinet - go." It's like CSI but with less stray carpet fibers and more cabriole legs.

I'll admit it, I cracked and bought the last Harry Potter book. I'm 90 pages in and I'm starting to feel a little too old for it. I adored Harry Potter... when I was thirteen. I can't believe that's when I started reading these books. Well, regardless, I want to see how it ends because I generally like to see things through. I used to love how JK Rowling described Dumbledore walking down a hall, she always said that he "swept." I realize that makes me sound simple, but there it is. Anyways, so [spoiler alert] Dumbledore is dead and there are no more sweeping wizards and I'm sort of hung up on the fact that Harry is 17 and would probably rather be chasing girls and smoking cigarettes behind the gym than defeating Death Eaters and tracking down Voldemort's horocruxes. So, the whole point of this is to say please don't email me and spoil the ending. ("OMG, HARRY LIKE TOTALLY DIES!")

The railway is closed between Cupar and Edinburgh this week, and it now takes me 2 1/2 hours one way to commute by bus. I tend to get motion sick on buses so reading a little HP is out of the question. Country living: rustic and rewarding or a pain in the *%@?

A Long Days' Journey Into Right

It's going to take me forever to get everything loaded onto my new computer. I gave up trying to do itunes. I can't stand that program. But hey, while you're here, check out the new link to my friend Hannah's blog at the right. Hannah and I lived together for two years in Chapel Hill and now she is embarking for Japan to teach the kids over there a thing or two about 'Merica.

ALSO: Here's an exciting bit of hometown news. Patrick Link -- my best friend from high school and regional champ at alternative versions of pictionary -- had his play selected for the New York Fringe Festival. I'm so proud I could burst. I remember when we did Yellow Boat together and I made him paint his feelings. "How does it feel, Benjamin?" You can visit the website for his show by clicking here.

And now: photos from today which I know my mom will like. Hopefully it will induce her to come visit me. There is almost nothing I like better than to walk through Fife on a Saturday. Especially when there are hidden lochs filled with potatoes and crumbling rock walls:

That's a lot of mash.

To the left, Cupar. To the right, the... erm.... Quaker Oats factory.

Wild thistles, I say.

It's Saturday night in Cupar. Something hot is happening on the High Street and I'm going to find out what it is. Did I mention the only night spot used to be the local jail? That sounds like my kind of trouble.

The Glorious, Long-Awaited Return

SHE'S BACK.

The new computer arrived in the mail today [ many thanks to my family in Durham] and, well, it is a liquid hot tornado of Intel processing and RAM. I don't know how to sum up the last two months, but I think a short list will suffice:

- work
- riding the train
- work
- work
- a brief moment where I thought I might have to move to London and live in a hovel
- work
- work

So I didn't take the London job. It was a tumultuous decision, fraught with apprehension and what-if's, but I'm confident in my choice and am thrilled to announce that it means I will be coming home for the entire month of September!

In honor of my return to the blog, I will simply jump right in to the day-to-day of living in rural Fife and commuting to Edinburgh. Things are a lot different from my life in St Andrews these days, but I'm enjoying it out here. I especially love my work at the auction house, and I'm sad that I'll have to leave at the end of August. Ok, so today:

David and I went on a walk this morning, a "wee walk" he suggested over pancakes and bacon. We drove to the outskirts of Cupar to a place called Moonzie, parked, and walked up a short hill called The Mount. It was a gentle winding path up with lots of wild raspberries along the way. I ate a bunch and took some more home in a jar to make jam. I love how raspberries feel when you pull them off the little nub on the vine. Everything about it says EAT ME. So, I did. And how.

There was a little hidden loch about halfway up the hill that David calls Loch Potato because some anonymous farmer has been dumping his seed potatoes into it for years. We crashed through the woods to find it, and sure enough there was a HUGE pile of sodden potatoes right by the bank. They had all shot out roots over each other in a desperate attempt to get to the waterline. Weird.

We got to the top of the mount and explored the massive tower built there as a monument in 1826 to a Laird who fought in the Napoleonic wars. I stood on top of the cairn and David took my picture. We walked back down, and David was delighted to see a bird called a Yellow Hammer (great name) flit past. He says the way to remember what their song sounds like is to imagine they are singing just-a-little-bit-of-bread-AND-cheese. I wish I could describe the way he said it, but it was freakin hilarious. Sure enough, that's what it sounds like.

I'm still getting the new machine squared away for my incredibly specific usage, so after I get OCD-ed out on the file storage I will post some pictures from the walk and others.

Right! Love and miss you all, but I'll see you in FIVE WEEKS. Yes.

PS: I guess I should say that I've decided to stay in St Andrews to do my masters degree in the School of Art History. I am planning on moving to Edinburgh and working part time in auctions and commuting to St Andrews once a week for discussion, etc. I'm very, very excited about my research proposal, and it turns out that the postgraduate committee is too. Double Yes.

... guess I'll have to change my blog header to "Two Years at the University of St Andrews" ?

I wasn't going to say anything, but

I applied for a job at the London office. I got called for an interview on Friday and hopped on a train straightaway to see what happened. Well, the train went to London so that was nice. I also went to my interview, which was not so nice, so we'll just have to cross our fingers and see. If I don't get it I won't be too surprised -- I'm wildly under qualified and, well, quite young -- but I wanted to let everyone know that if I do get it I will be moving to London at the end of the month and ordering a fresh box of business cards.

Other news? Well, work and more work is the name of the game. It's happy work, though; I really enjoy what I'm doing and my co-workers are pure dead brilliant. On the down side, I'm still wearing a coat and scarf to work most days, but I hear that skin as white as the driven snow is very chic this season. The tops of my feet could blind you.

Out!