Glastonbury Half Full

[steepholm]

Last Thursday I took Ayako back to Glastonbury, mostly to meet up with Eriko Kawanishi, my anthropologist friend, who has been studying the religious practices of Glastonburians for many years now. I feel a bit jealous of her, because she was able to leave her Osaka university to come here for a few weeks (albeit some quarantine was necessary), whereas I've had to cancel (for the third time) my flight to Japan, where I was due to spend 6 weeks this autumn to research my new book. If only I'd been an Olympic-level athlete they might have let me in, but I left it a bit late to train up, and so must do the best I can without access to a Japanese library.

Anyway, while in Glastonbury I bought a postcard book that I'd noticed last time I was there, called Crap Views of Glastonbury Tor, and we spent a happy morning recreating the various views therein. You can see a few of the cards at the book's website. Their irreverence is amusing of course, but I couldn't help be reminded - perhaps because I was with two Japanese friends - of the "Views of Mount Fuji" sequences of Hokusai and Hiroshige, in which Fuji-san is often discreetly nestled, Where's Wally style, in the background of a mundane scene. And so here with Glastonbury Tor, Somerset's Fuji, hiding behind a recycling plant or the local KFC.

Magic is where you can find it.

Comments

[calimac]

It's not entirely the same thing, but I once picked up a book called The Idler Book of Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places to Live in the UK because I was curious as to what they'd be. For instance there's a suburb of Bristol called Yate which I'd never even heard of before. (#1 on the list: Hull, which I guess is not too surprising.) Although I'm not sure how much faith to place in the book's veracity, as the texts consist mostly of various writers whinging about their boring childhoods in these places.

[steepholm]

Yate is the birthplace of one J. K. Rowling - was she among the whingers?

[calimac]

No - these are mostly young unknown staff journalists, I suspect - though her residence in the area is mentioned.

Thank you for the mention

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you so much for mentioning my Crap Views of the Tor postcards and linking to my Normal For Glastonbury blog, it was delightful to find my work on such a scholarly site, I am so glad you enjoyed the postcards. Thank you, Vicki