At work today, I was oscillating between the bench and my desk, doing some cloning here and some modeling there. It was a good day, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, just as science should be. In the late afternoon, a succession of emails between me and a scientist in Sweden regarding some materials that we would like to give a try sucked me in.
I had to think about a bold model that this guy had presented and assess the likelihoods that different possible experimental strategies might succeed. It got dark; the office emptied. I had another tea and kept scratching my head, twiddling pencils forgetfully and tapping frantically on my keyboard – letter, letter, letter, backspace, backspace, backspace – but at some point it was time to go home.
Stepping out of the building, I was hit by an entirely unexpected flood of cold rain water. This morning, it had been nice. I was unprepared and quickly soaked, my jeans clinging heavily to my legs and impeding my movements. The ride could have been utterly sordid. It wasn't. Already on the home stretch racing straight west, I noticed the sky rip open and the rain stop. In front of me and above erupted, seemingly out of nowhere, a magnificent fireworks display, explosions of bright blue and sparkling silver.
The fireworks celebrated Guy Fawkes Night, but they were one day late. I hadn't been. Yesterday after work, I had trekked out to Lewes, a small town in Sussex near the English Channel seaside that's famous for Guy Fawkes Night parades and bonfires. It pulls off a show of such renown that it can hardly handle the crowds. This year, outside visitors were strongly discouraged from coming.
This didn't faze me. I left work at a reasonable hour and dove into the tube system with everyone else, thinking that Lewes can't be worse than this. Rush hour in London is crazy and positively invigorating as long as you're not forced to endure it every day. I've frequently talked about the energy that this town exudes. Underground, it's particularly palpable. Like a standing wave, it remains on platforms while people bounce around madly, appearing or leaving, getting on trains or alighting.
Nearly every person is in an invisible personal cocoon, reading a book precariously wedged between the shoulders of neighbors or sequestered under headphones administering music, language classes or the latest economic news as podcasts. This behavior is upheld while traveling on escalators, waiting on the platform and being squished in a train. Once the doors open, some people hatch from their cocoon, dashing off towards the stairs in an effort to minimize the time spent commuting.
Rush hour is a spectacle well worth watching, but I had a train to catch at Victoria, another cauldron of human bustle that I passed through rapidly, trying to keep up with the rush of experienced commuters. I made the train just in time.
In Lewes, it was hard to leave the station. People were everywhere. The narrow streets of the town were either barricaded off or totally crowded. Police and events stewards organized the human flow, in an impressively efficient way. We had no idea where we were going or what was going on. Nevertheless, after ten minutes of walking aimlessly and leisurely, we were in the main road just as the parade marched through.
And what a parade it was, unlike anything I've ever seen. It was part historical procession, part carnival, part infantry campaign, and it appeared out of nowhere. Not expecting it, we were shocked when ran into it and almost got burned. Walking up a hill towards flickering torches and loud shouts of excitement in a dense crowd, we caught glimpses of participants in historic costumes but had no time to appreciate them. We craned our necks only to see barrels of fire suddenly hurling in our direction.
In one delirious moment, the crowd in the street split, and each half hurtling onto the sidewalk with mild panic. Those that had waited patiently behind the curb were pushed into the walls behind them without much compassion. A few upset voices could be heard but most people took the madness stoically. The anarchy seemed to be an integral part of the event. As the parade passed by, people would venture onto the street to get a closer view, but soon enough another band of torch bearers would march by, wielding fire in people's faces and forcing them back like wild animals.
Guy Fawkes Night marks the foiled plot on the English Parliament by a bunch of Catholic conspirators, among them Mr. Fawkes, and is celebrated all over England. In Lewes, the commemoration is deeper than elsewhere because another troubling story enters the picture. During the reign of the catholic Queen Mary I. in the 1550s, seventeen protestants were burned on the stake for the heresy of their religious belief.
Not surprisingly, fire is the main theme of the night, and fireworks and bonfires are its culmination. There are a large number of bonfire societies in Lewes and the surrounding region of Sussex, and they constitute the parade. Each society is introduced by barrels of fire whose purpose it is to clear the way, and two or three giants carrying signs ablaze with the initials of the society. All participants wear historic costumes, the identities of which were steeped in tradition, no doubt, but entirely meaningless to me. I only noticed how eclectic the choices were – tons of smugglers, pirates of the Caribbean, Ottoman nobility, Native Americans, Mexican mariachi, and Mongolians. Most marchers carried torches. Each society also had at least one marching band desperately trying to be heard through the blasts of firecrackers, and a float with an effigy to be burned later in a huge bonfire outside of town. It was loud, chaotic and seemed completely uncontrolled.
However, the mood was restrained, if restrained craziness is possible. The English have a tendency to overdo parties, to binge drink on every occasion until they puke their brains out. Last night, there was nothing of this sort. People celebrated, people partied, people drank, but when the last train left for London, everyone lined up at the platform and went back home without as much as a bruise or a singed cheek. In town, the litter was already being swept up while fireworks were still shooting into the midnight sky. It was a great night out for everyone.
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