Art and Ideas

"I never will start a museum, or, apart from an odd or end, an art collection. Part of me doesn’t warm to owning precious things. I’m glad there are museums where art can be kept, dusted and safe and out of my apartment. Personally I love ideas as much as objects, not that I can separate them: I feel ideas are as sensuous as things." 

-- From a May 3 article by Holland Cotter, art critic for The New York Times, about the $120 million recently paid for an 1895 pastel version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream." It's the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction.

(Photo: Red curtains in Shoreditch, March 17.)

Boulevard

Prompted by my friend Sally, I went to see an amazing photography show at the Saatchi Gallery on Friday. It featured hallucinogenic landscapes, high-definition depictions of the beauty and chaos of artists' studios, abstractions that explored the line (if there is one) between photography and computer technology, and some incredible portraits. Katy Grannan's "Boulevard" project really blew me away -- a series of large, almost forensically detailed portraits of characters from the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Every wrinkle, flyaway hair and blot of smudged mascara is visible on the faces of the addicts, senior citizens, bikers, cross-dressers and others that Grannan chose as her subjects. Are they beautiful or grotesque -- or both? I took some photos of the photos, but I couldn't begin to do them justice. If you'd like to check them out, some accompany this article about her work.

After seeing the show, I walked home from the gallery through Chelsea and Kensington. I stopped at a cafe for cappuccino and an unremarkable square of raspberry lemon cake, and then took photos all the way back.

In fact, it's been a weekend of small pleasures. Yesterday Dave and I took it easy, watching "Saturday Kitchen" on BBC and then going for massages at our neighborhood spa. I still smell like minty, spicy massage oil.

In the evening we had Taco Night and watched the really terrible movie "Dune." I hadn't seen "Dune" since right after its release in the mid-'80s and I'd been wondering whether my memory of it was accurate -- could it really have been all that incomprehensible and tedious? Did the special effects really look like they were produced in someone's basement? The answer, on both counts, is yes.

(Photo: A lonely-looking potted plant behind a building that I think is part of Royal Brompton Hospital, in Chelsea.)

Household Curiosities

Our last dozen eggs came complete with a feather!

Dave bought a huge fresh horseradish root at the grocery store. After grating most of it, we planted the two knobby ends to see what would happen. Voila, we have a horseradish plant! We're curious to see what it will look like as it matures.

This tiny purple blossom appeared on our rosemary plant -- which, sadly, we had to discard because it was infected with some kind of pestilence. (See all the white fuzz on the leaves?)

My friend Pam brought us some peanut brittle from Spain when she visited a few weeks ago. It was dee-lish. The ripply reflections created by the plastic wrapper were merely a bonus.

Remember our sorry seeds-in-a-can from Amsterdam, none of which ever grew? Well, our one similarly canned bulb is now going gangbusters, as you can see. I'll post photos if and when it blooms!

Nobody Reads Your Blog

I laughed when I found this sticker on one of my walks this week. It's by a street artist named Curly, whose stickers I've found in both London and New York. And while it's not quite true, in my case, it's a sentiment any blogger can ruefully appreciate.

When I first began blogging, I suppose I had hopes of developing a following -- and I did develop a small one, for which I am thankful. But I also quickly learned that I am a tiny speck of plankton in the huge ocean of the Internet, and eventually reconciled myself and my blog to a life of relative obscurity. I am not the kind of writer who gains fame on the Web, being snarky about celebrities and offering cutting political commentary. I'm just writing about my life, which -- let's face it -- isn't all that different from many other lives.

Whenever I'm tempted to grow frustrated about a lack of readers, I remind myself that I kept journals on paper for many, many years. And no one read those. Blogging is the same creative release -- not a path to notoriety. That's why this sticker made me laugh, rather than cry!

Voices from the Past

For years, my mom has saved a suitcase full of letters from her parents and grandmother, mailed in the late 1950s, the '60s and the early '70s. She keeps threatening to throw them all away, but I've discouraged it. I get a kick out of reading them -- aside from all the news about family and neighborhood, they contain fascinating snippets about the news stories of the day. After all, these letters were written in one of the most tumultuous eras in American history.

For most of these years, my mom lived in Florida. My grandparents lived in Washington, D.C., where Mom grew up. My great-grandmother lived in a small town in Central Florida, my grandmother's childhood home.

“I am shocked and grieved over our president. Would hate for such a disaster to happen to anyone. I watched TV until midnight Friday and most of yesterday. Watched his program in Tampa Monday. It was so good. So happy it didn’t happen there.” -- Great-grandmother, postcard of Nov. 24, 1963

“Last weekend was a nightmare to us all. I shall never look at so much television again. I actually got a stiff neck from it. The murder of the alleged assassin was indeed right out of the paper-covered writings. One got to expecting -- what next?” -- Grandfather, letter of Nov. 27, 1963

When I was home in February, I combed through the letters and transcribed the brief passages that had to do with news. I had it in my head that they might be fodder for some kind of writing project. Unfortunately, although my grandparents always watched the news, they didn't write about it extensively -- usually it was just a sentence here or there.

“I have been listening to the news of King. He should not have pushed that Memphis march until people cooled off. I think all the news gets emotions aroused. If it isn’t stopped I don’t know what will happen.” -- Grandmother, letter of April 5, 1968

My grandparents were pretty conservative -- he more so than she -- and they occasionally voiced disapproval about the demonstrations and political leaders of the day. They did not admire Martin Luther King Jr., for example, and they liked Richard Nixon.

“I believe Mr. Nixon lost touch with reality a few years ago. He must have, to record all that junk for the world to read, and he and his pals all lawyers. Caesar said, 'The evils of men live after them, the good is often interred with their bones,' or something like that.” -- Grandfather, letter of Aug. 14, 1974

Mostly, though, they avoided ideology and discussed the news only as it immediately affected their lives. My grandmother, for example, was prevented from going to work in the late 1960s by race riots in Washington, D.C. My grandfather wrote about a man he knew at work who was killed in those riots, and later, about the difficulties of buying gasoline during the gas crisis of the early 1970s.

“Gas is short up here. We have long lines at the stations. The limit is about $3 and people join the lines to get it. There isn’t as much shortage as there appears. People are afraid to let their tank get down to 1/4 full so they drive on the upper half of the tank for fear that between 1/4 and half full will not get them through. Have to buy gas in the morning, but not too early. I had a choice of six stations on my way to work at one time. This morning I counted those not open or closed. It turned out I couldn’t buy gas this morning -- none were open at 7 a.m. or earlier. Had gas anyway so I was not in trouble.” -- Grandfather, letter of Jan. 30, 1974

My mom has often said she worries about how some of these letters would be read today. Her parents' criticism of King, for example, or their unsympathetic view toward the violence that followed his assassination. But I don't think their views were uncommon among middle-class white Americans in the 1960s. That's why the letters are so valuable -- they're a time capsule of a sort.

They also help me hear, after so many years, the voices of my family. My grandfather died in 1977, my grandmother in 1989, and my great-grandmother in 1974. Great-grandmother's postcards are covered in tiny cursive scrawled so tightly by her octogenarian hand that it's nearly impossible to read, but her Southern speech patterns come through.

“News of terrible tragedy in California (indecipherable) me. I watched from time of victory speech made till end in Arlington Cemetery. Like killed me.” -- Great grandmother, postcard of June 11, 1968

Among the major events missing from these missives is the moon landing. My parents (and me, as a toddler) were living in Washington, D.C. at the time, while my father finished his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland. So there was no need for letter-writing. My grandparents were practically right next door.

(Photo: Railroad lines in Shepherd's Bush, London, on Monday.)

From Drought to Flood

This was the scene Sunday near our tube stop, Notting Hill Gate, after a huge metal scaffold covering the side of this building was blown down by high winds. Fortunately the collapse occurred at 3 a.m. and no one was hurt. I'm surprised we didn't hear it, even though we live several blocks away.

The weather here has been crazy recently. Some parts of England have had a month's worth of rain in a single day, according to the Daily Mail, which has some amazing flood photos. London had 5.2 inches of rain in April, about two and a half times the historical average. Nationally it was the wettest April in more than 100 years.

That's why I keep posting all these photos of clouds and gray skies. I mean, April showers, OK -- but this is ridiculous.

Nothing's changing in the immediate future, either. Today is supposed to be gray, tomorrow and Friday we'll have more rain, and it's cloudy through the weekend.

Fortunately I've been able to get out and explore a bit during brief sunny spells, and today I think I'll walk over to Trellick Tower and look for new graffiti. (Graffiti photography is actually best done on cloudy days, when shadows don't fall across the art.) Rainy days are always a great excuse to stay in and read, too, so I'm getting lots of reading done!

Yesterday I lugged some terra cotta pots back from the hardware store and repotted some plants on our balcony -- the geranium I've been trying to root, and our new tomato plants. Dave is determined to grow tomatoes on our usually sunny balcony, and our neighbors Chris and Linda abetted this plan a few weeks ago by bringing us several tomato seedlings. They'll be out of the reach of our local foxes, but what about the pigeons?

My Hollywood Moment

I finally had an opportunity to rent "At the Jersey Shore," the movie that was filmed partly in my office back in August 2010. It's available on iTunes now. (I'll say it again: Isn't the Internet great?)

Unfortunately, whatever footage was filmed in the newsroom seems to have been left on the cutting room floor. Back when they were filming, the lead actor sat at a desk near me, and numerous extras populated the desks around him -- the cameras definitely were rolling in the main newsroom. The movie, though, only contains scenes shot in the hallway and a private office.

So needless to say, I'm not in the background after all. Oh well. There goes my Hollywood career.

And how was the movie? Well, it features some amusingly grievous misconceptions about the newspaper industry. The main character is supposed to be a reporter working on an article about dating at the Jersey Shore -- why that's worthy of investigative journalism, I'm not sure. He apparently takes all summer to write the article, which he then hands to his editor in the form of a thick sheaf of paper. I was thinking, who has three months to write a single article? Where are all the intervening city council meetings, the incidents of murder and mayhem that make up local news? And who turns in a coincidentally script-sized article -- way too large for a newspaper -- on paper? I had a good laugh.

Another silly journalism moment: A coworker says to the lead character, "A massage parlor got busted in Edison. How should I handle that?" Ummm, all puns aside: Call the police? Call the massage parlor?

Aside from that, it's mildly entertaining, though the romance is cliched and the characters have some frankly unbelievable quirks. (The female lead is a fashion design student who hates New York City and longs to go study in Orlando! Having grown up in Florida, I don't buy that for a minute.) I thought the cinematography was the best part -- the camera guys got some beautiful shots.

Still, I'm impressed the movie was finished at all, and that I got to see it. I was skeptical that it would ever see the light of day.

(Photo: Buckingham Palace, last Monday.)