{"id":1760,"date":"2008-12-03T23:18:27","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T23:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/03\/liverpool\/"},"modified":"2024-11-29T14:48:45","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T19:48:45","slug":"liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/03\/liverpool\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow, why didn\u2019t anyone tell me<\/strong> that Liverpool<\/a> is such a fantastic city? When I was forced to book an emergency appointment up here to get my visa renewed, I just assumed it would be some dreary fringe town: biggish, maybe, but probably grim, and resting on the laurels of the Beatles. Why? Dunno. Instead, I\u2019ve discovered it\u2019s crammed with fantastic architecture and public sculpture and all sorts of grooviness.<\/p>\n

\"Liverpool<\/p>\n

When I found out I\u2019d need to race up here as soon as I returned from my week back in the States, I gave myself a couple of extra days just to avoid unnecessary stress and possible complications with the visa process. (That was easy and successful, but more on that later.) Instead, this has turned into a grand little mini-vacation that\u2019s letting me decompress after the jam-packed trip to America.<\/p>\n

My favorite site for hotel deals<\/a> came through for me once again, scoring me a cheap room in the surprisingly swanky Adelphi Hotel<\/a> (past its prime, perhaps, but still pretty lush). While waiting to check in, I wandered off to check out what turned out to be an astounding retrospective on Le Corbusier<\/a> nearby. I knew it was in the local cathedral, but had no idea there were two of those in town. While it turns out that the exhibition was in the Catholic cathedral<\/a> (which, frankly, looks like Space Mountain<\/a>), I first found my way to the ginormous and magnificent Anglican cathedral<\/a>, which is one of those buildings that you can enter and immediately suspect is architecturally important<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\"Liverpool<\/p>\n

(The Corbu show was great, but it\u2019s coming to the Barbican next month, so London folks will get there chance to check it out. And they should.)<\/p>\n

\"Port<\/p>\n

After my trip to the Home Office today I wandered down to the port area \u2014 it\u2019s all very grand, and a bunch of new buildings look like they\u2019ll keep it from just being a well-preserved relic of its golden years \u2014 to investigate the Tate Liverpool<\/a>. Another success! Their current show, The Twentieth Century: How It Looked & How It Felt<\/a>, is a nice overview of themes in modern art of the past century, and featured a lot of great stuff I\u2019d never seen before, like this luminous Picasso<\/a> that kept me transfixed for a while, this Bonnard bather<\/a>, and this tiny gem of a sculpture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have one afternoon left before I trudge back to Tooting, and I\u2019m feeling a bit of pressure to find another extraordinary batch of stuff to view. Or maybe I should just wander and see where I end up? We shall see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, why didn\u2019t anyone tell me that Liverpool is such a fantastic city? When I was forced to book an emergency appointment up here to get my visa renewed, I just assumed it would be some dreary fringe town: biggish, maybe, but probably grim, and resting on the laurels of the Beatles. Why? Dunno. Instead, … Continue reading “Liverpool!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultrapersonal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1760"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74550,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions\/74550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}