The Isokon Building, Lawn Road, Belsize Park. Also known as the Lawn Road Flats.
Designed in a modernist style by architect Wells Coates and completed in 1934. The building was home to many famous residents such as the Bauhaus architects Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, as well as the author Agatha Christie.
That British Vogue UK interview felt as if it was scripted by the Home Office. I’m not particularly happy about it. Where can I send him a Bollocks To Brexit sticker?
It’s no secret that Brexit has been dominating headlines and our mental health for way too long now, 4 years of uncertainty and cheap populism that defined 2016, that year where the only positive element was the Jake Gyllenhaal newsletter. I’m not sure what Jake Gyllenhaal is trying to convey in that Vogue interview. It gave me painful red bus flashbacks, and the photo above is a perfect depiction of my reading it. He’s more than welcome to borrow an EU pin from my collection if he so desires. I got plenty. I’m good with sharing. Come back to the light, Jake.
Fine, this was British Vogue, so I guess there had to be some amount of pandering involved. Vogue is not that political, but Jake is, and the beginning was much too auspicious for my taste, that I may or may not have lost due to covid. We set the scene in pre-pandemic 2020, when Priti Patel is already at the helm of the Home Office and Boris Johnson refuses to petition the EU for an extension:
With a wide, puppyish grin on his face, he is carrying two paper cups of scalding hot water and a box of PG Tips, tucked under his arm, from the set of his Vogue shoot to his interview. And while I hate to be a predictable reporter... well, here we are. It’s just such an unlikely scene - the Hollywood star making a DIY cuppa (two teabags, no milk, admitting that, really, Yorkshire Gold would be preferable) in a capacious photo studio in midtown Manhattan.
First of all, listen. You never pour the water before the teabag. I know the MTA has decided that Trump’s idea of UV light killing covid was worth wasting our $2.75, and therefore there are no more rules. It’s 2020, it’s The Purge up in here, but we must hold onto what made us human, what allowed us to be bound to the social contract, we must believe there is such a thing as a democratic republic (or - I mean, ew - monarchy) to be saved, some form of civilization, and no one ever dunks the teabag into water. No one does that. What is this form of odd reversion? Is it a sign that everything was about to be flipped upside down in the weeks to come after this interview? Or is it some sort of Illuminati sign that Jakey-Jakes is not down with our obsolete European ways?
Cause ya, the UK is still in the EU.
Second. I have been called names for drinking my tea black, and from now on, I’m going to also sport the signature Jake Gyllenhaal Puppyish Grin and say “that’s how Jake Gyllenhaal drinks it”, but I’ve always taken my tea black, and there are endless conversations about how that defines one’s personality. Some have even gone as far as saying that some ends of the spectrum were not worth fucking. I felt rejected, just like that one time at the Tottenham Court Road tube station, but that’s a different story. Jake Gyllenhaal just validated how I take my tea, and I just want to say, I love my country, but I love being European more, and what matters is our freedom in diversity and our capacity to move freely across non existing borders, and to take our tea without milk. I just want to be free as a bird. I am beautiful, in every single way.
Are we going to start tea wars in this interview? Yorkshire Gold, really? I’m currently drinking my one bag (lol I’m no waster) Marks & Spencer Every Day Tea which is just as good and comes in packs of recyclable tissue teabags of 80, which perfectly fits my weekly tea consumption (remember what my grandmother always said! My grandmother was never wrong, up until the terrifying day when she left and made me an orphan, and her last question was about Brexit). No. You either drink PG Tips or you use the Irish Breakfast one from Tetley’s, but there’s no argument that Yorkshire Gold is preferable to PG Tips. It’s entirely manufactured snobbery. Guess what, you don’t even know what kind of tea they serve you at the cafeteria on the top floor of the Tate Modern, and it still is perfectly good, so how about we stick to PG Tips? Also, who has never walked into a house where a 120-bag pack of PG Tips wasn’t a feature of every cabinet? I don’t know. I would like some stability in this world. I would like to be able to rely on some memories that were not tainted by institutional racism or the downfall of the welfare state. We will be drinking PG Tips, thank you.
But then, Gyllenhaal insists he is “about as British as an American can be”.
[ laughs in War of Independence ]
I mean... is this... a good thing? I’m confused. The special relationship right now is destructive, but if it means that no more tea will be spilled in Boston Harbour and instead will be quietly sipped with finger sandwiches on the dining concourse in Grand Central, I’m not mad. But if I wanted my Hollywood SuperStar Puppyish Grin to be milquetoast, bland and look like Ed Miliband, this would be a Jude Law blog, knowwhaddamsayin?
Speaking of being an Anglophile, something I have come not to be after a few decades of feeling somewhat tense, Jakey-Jakes says:
“I felt this sense that I was among people who looked at things the same way I did.”
BACKWARDS?
Oh wait, it was 2002. Oh wait, it was the timeline of the Chilcot Inquiry. This interview is the worst occupational hazard I’ve come to face.
And now, Jake Gyllenhaal slaps me across the face, with his giant hands, and it stings; the warmth of the slap is sending shivers throughout my body; I’m trying not to let my eyes well up, because I don’t want Jake Gyllenhaal to know how much he’s hurt me, so I look up at him, defiantly, and mutter a sarcastic go raibh maith agat, and I will not reciprocate the slap, but I know full well that I will soon look at my face in the mirror and the imprint on my cheek and jawline will forever match the echo in my head:
Since then, he’s spent “five or six years cumulatively” in the capital, living everywhere from East London to Notting Hill. He adores Hampstead Heath - “I don’t think there’s any place like it in the world”
Bro, you been to the Tiergarten?
Here’s why it hurts. The Heath is in fact not quite that beautiful, but it can be if you are in the right company. I have black and white photos of an afternoon spent climbing its leafy pathways with two of my favorite people, bottles of Prosecco clinking inside a bag, and settling down on Parliament Hill pouring it on paper cups and eating birthday cake with our hands. One of the photos has one of those people stood up, their back to me (taking the photo), hands in their pockets, looking at the sprawling City beneath us, while his husband was looking at him and holding my hand at the same time. The husband in question is my brother. I have loved that afternoon, however overcast it was; I have loved walking my friend’s dog when he was still a puppy over those hills, and watch him playfully wrestle with other dogs. There were other groups of people, drinking g&t in a can, laying in the grass, kissing, embracing, or simply walking around.
But the Heath also shows something: the massive cloud you see over the city is not a cloud, it’s smog. There’s no such thing as London Fog; it’s smog. It’s pure pollution, you choke on it, and people used to die from it. And I posted this photo because the proverbial slap I mentioned earlier reminded me that London is only a place of heartbreak and of deceit for me, although I have dear friends, beloved friends, cherished friends, and a long standing relationship with the Eurostar. There are other places that are like the Heath. The Tiergarten is indeed much more beautiful; the rose gardens of Cordoba are unparalleled; the gardens of the Budapest castle, and any rolling hill in Ireland. That sentence was personally hurtful, sure, and it’s not a reflection on anyone else but me; but it is also factually untrue. Berlin forever.
Deep breaths. Long story short, there is nothing for anyone at the Belsize Park tube station, not anymore.
The rest of the interview has quite thirsty moments that made me think that I’m not the only one being completely inept, or having no filter:
... he tells me of his experience, running a hand through his Disney prince hair, a faint huskiness to his voice.
I’m feeling uncomfortable and maybe I should leave those two alone.
... or for him to fix me with those famous eyes (my god, those icy blue, clear-as-the-Aegean eyes)
It’s taking everything for me not to sing “twin fire signs / four blue eyes” to this, but I’m also amused by the fact that Jake Gyllenhaal’s eyes are both icy blue and as clear as the Aegean (that sea never being icy cold) and not any other smaller sea east of the Meditteranean. Anyway, Aegean? That’s European waters.
Yet musical theatre is not, I suggest, where people imagine him. (...) “I’d be so interested to know where (people) do put me”, he laughs. “I’ve tried to sneak out of those places my whole life.”
I don’t know, the one thing that was really upsetting about this referendum, in addition to just about, well, everything, is that EU membership always grants member states the possibility to opt out of a treaty or a structure (or the treaty that rules the structure); Schengen, the common currency, etc. So in a way, the UK has tried to sneak out of those places their whole life, successfully might I add, while still having an influential seat at the table. So why turn their back on solidarity, if it was possible to do musical theatre at the same time? You know? does this make sense? I’m making a parallel between Brexit and Jakey-Jake’s career. Yes? No? Oh my god. I am requesting an extension, right now.
Speaking of Jakey-Jakes’ childhood, during which his “deeply feminist” (apparently, Jake’s words, and from what I know, I would agree) mother would make him watch Ken Loach movies,
this explains a lot
Actually no it doesn’t. Has anyone watched Ken Loach movies? Who would want to proudly call themselves British after that? What’s next? Singing This Is England over IGTV but then calling Margaret Thatcher a feminist icon? Don’t get me started.
He recites his favorite line of the play: “Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new. Give us more to see.”
So not only is it now entirely agreed that I will bawl my eyes out inside the Savoy, whenever that’s going to happen, it’s also a line about introspection, turning inward, some would say, seeing the man as an island. Well, I come from an island, and while it may keep my bones as well, it will never be the alpha and the omega of life experience. I think Jake Gyllenhaal is Brexiting from his life.
And I would love for him to return to the frustrating, diverse, colorful, expensive, infuriating, proud, driven concept that is transnationalism, I mean, exploring and opening up. At the end of the day, however, this is not a democracy; I have no vote over Jake Gyllenhaal’s life (and that’s for the best, for anyone involved, believe me). He has made decisions for himself for a very long time and this one seems to have been consciously raised time and time again. I hate to see people leave, but when one is pushing it away so hard, what can we do, besides protecting ourselves from the loss? We’ll be here when he decides to return. There may be no precedent, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create it. After all, isn’t it the point of art?
London has been pretty great so far. We've walked around the Hampstead area quite a lot, as that's around where our Airbnb is. Our host has a mysterious old lady living above her whom we are apparently not supposed to interact with; also, there is a part of the floor near our room that we're not supposed to step on that I keep accidentally stepping on, but I will probably have myself trained when it's time to leave next Wednesday. The Underground (tube/train) is pretty much exactly like public transportation in Boston, except more efficient and with less of a urine smell. Good times!
We've visited Madame Tussaud's, 221 Baker Street, the all-Beatles store right next to it, and Buckingham Palace so far. Our vacays tend to involve us shoving in as much as we are physically capable of doing, honestly. We have a day trip to Stonehenge planned later in the week, as well as a showing of Betrayal, and a trip to St. Abbs (New Asgard in Endgame), where we have rented a yurt for the night. We're spending some time now going over what else we can fit in, and how to get there, etc. We also may or may not have befriended (and bought treats for) a local cat. (Don't tell Xanatos, ssshh.)
It's hard to overemphasize how much fun I'm having, least of all because @thishereanakinguy is experiencing everything right alongside me. Sarah's mom also gave her money to get her some tacky royal family souvenirs, and we have not disappointed so far. My mom has contributed her own brand of passive-aggressive guilt-tripping, which is disappointing mostly because she hasn't seemed to need to lately, but there you go.
Number of phone charging cords we may or may not have lost so far approximately ten minutes after purchasing them: 1. But the week is yet young!
