Not one of the better ones

It didn't occur to me until I was walking to the post office yesterday afternoon, but I'm already upon the one-year anniversary of our France/England trip. Given the 5-hour time differential I would go so far as to say that at this precise moment one year ago my fingers were working diligently away at updating everyone on that day's events. The highlight of that particular day was going to Ultima Thule record shop in Leicester and buying an awful lot of records. By coincidence, I received two records in the mail today. Zounds. Plus ça change, je suppose.

Along the same lines, I was watching Stephen Fry In America last night. Not really sure what it is about titans of British comedy discovering a second life as your jolly, inquisitive travel guide, but it's worked for various Monty Python guys so why not Fry? Though he's a British national treasure with numerous series under his belt, if Fry is known in the U.S. at all, it's for being Hugh Laurie's (TV's House) comedy partner from way back when. That is a lament for another time, however.

As the title suggests, this particular series finds Stephen Fry in America, confused, bemused and bamboozled by the curious ways of us yanks. All of which is delivered with that dry reserve of which only the British can muster. Bemusement seems to be a recurring theme with the British. The idea that Americans are a lovable sort but, dear me, somewhat unrefined with an silly desire to have everything bigger, louder and all-around better just because we can. A fair point, but an oversimplification.

Fry himself seems to quickly realize this as he dwells deeper into the country, into the less heralded segments and rural areas. A coal mine in West Virginia, a Thanksgiving dinner in Savannah, even an Auburn-Alabama football game. Seems telling that the only stop in this episode that Fry found truly revolting was the pastel nightmare of Miami. Refreshingly, this was the one example of that big, garish, glaring distraction America that was highlighted.

I'm sure my surroundings color my view, but I tend to find more of interest in the forgotten. In this overexposed culture that we call the modern life, it's nice to (re)discover something and delve deeper into that which has not been rehashed endlessly. Which is not say, I don't enjoy a thriving metropolis, I do. But it just seems that in order to find any semblance of the unique or the individual it takes traveling along that overused phrase: the road less traveled. But I've already probably gotten too pretentious and really don't feel like developing that further.

I think I lost my train of thought somewhere along the way and probably shouldn't hit post. I will anyway. Maybe I'll delete it sometime. Maybe not. The next entry will be better. Unless it's not.