Influencers

Well, I was right about all my neighbor's cardboard boxes. The bin men evidently looked at that unwieldy assortment of flattened and baled cardboard and decided it did not meet their exacting standards for collection, so much of it was left behind. Aaaargh! I have never lived in a place where the trash collectors retain such veto power over what we're allowed to discard and how.

They did empty our bins, though, so I then flattened and folded as much of the remaining cardboard as possible and shoved it into one of the empty bins. I'll let the neighbor (who is away at the moment) deal with the rest. I have a feeling it will take a couple of weeks to get rid of this glut of boxes. And they haven't even completely moved in yet!

After that morning adventure, I decided I needed to get out of the house. I texted my friend Chris and we made plans to meet up at the Tate Britain to see the Edward Burra art exhibit. I'd never heard of Burra but the show was fascinating -- it begins with his lively and energetic paintings of Roaring '20s nightlife and moves into much darker territory with paintings inspired by the Spanish civil war and mid-20th Century environmental degradation. Burra's sexuality seems to be an open question -- he painted queer-coded images of sailors and androgynous figures, and hung out with a theatrical, Bohemian set, but there was no mention of much of a personal life.

At one point, struggling with depression during the restrictions of World War II, Burra wrote to a friend, "The very sight of peoples faces sickens me I've got no pity it realy is terrible sometimes Ime quite frightened at myself I think such awful things I get in such paroxysms of impotent venom I feel it must poison the atmosphere."

I turned to Chris and said, "Gee, he sounds just like me in the library!"

We skipped the adjacent Ithell Colquhoun exhibit but I may go back today for that.

After the show we walked to nearby Page Street (top photo), with its distinctive checkerboard council flats designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. (Remember him? I found a monument to him on Apple Tree Yard several weeks ago.)

Our goal was the Regency Cafe, which may be the closest thing I've seen to a diner in London. The menu is wide and varied, with breakfast all day, the food appears quickly and it's the kind of no-frills place where you eat and then get the heck out to free up the table for the next person. It is not haute cuisine. I had a Cornish pasty with cabbage that I'm pretty sure emerged only moments before from a microwave, but I loved it overall. I'd go back.

Then we walked across the river and down to the redeveloped Battersea Power Station, where we came upon a throng of young women lined up in a gigantic queue. (Can you see them all beyond the far side of that white fence, above?) Chris and I were mystified about what was going on. Turns out they were there to see a couple of social media influencers -- these two -- who were in that yellow truck. Apparently they have launched a new line of clothing.

Like the old farts that we are, Chris and I discussed the pros and cons (mostly cons) of influencer culture, which we don't really get. As Chris said, "It's just product placement!" But clearly we aren't the target audience for these products anyway. So we moved on, had a cup of coffee by the river, and then made our way back to our respective flats.

It did me good to get away and I managed to get through the day with no tears. Though I still feel squeezed by heaviness and doubt, grief is slowly, ever so slowly, lessening its grip.