Chewing Gum Art Revisited

Almost five years ago, I blogged about some tiny portraits that had been painted on blobs of chewing gum stuck to the sidewalk near the school where I work.

They're the product of artist Ben Wilson, and I checked up on them this week to see if they still exist. And they do! A bit worn and battered, but nonetheless still visible. That is some seriously super-durable chewing gum.

After all, who knows how long they'd been there before I blogged about them? Possibly years.

Wilson doesn't just paint on found gum. He developed a method that involves heating it with a blowtorch and applying several layers of lacquer to stabilize and harden his miniature artworks. These are probably portraits of people somehow associated with the area around the school -- they could even be from the school, though I don't recognize them.

It no doubt helps that these artworks are near the outer edge of the sidewalk, where there are light poles and other obstacles forcing most of the foot traffic to the center. They probably don't get stepped on that often.

I wonder if Wilson is still painting his chewing gum art? I haven't found any for a while, but then again, I haven't always been looking. Shame on me!

Home Movies and Women's Day

Just as I recently digitized some old family tape recordings, I'm also working on converting our home movies to digital files. Our movies -- made by my dad in the late '60s and early '70s -- are on Super 8 film reels, and those reels haven't been viewed in years and years. In the '80s, Dad had them converted to videotape, so we had a video version which was then converted, years later, to DVD. But of course the quality is terrible because it's two steps removed from the original format -- and besides, we've always suspected that the guy who transferred the movies to video in the '80s missed a reel.

When I visited my mom in February I collected all those films and brought them to England. Yesterday, I hauled our one big reel and five small ones to a film transfer lab near Tottenham Court Road, and in about a week we should have newly digitized home movies. They'll even adjust the color if needed and make other corrections. Woo hoo!

I might put a few scenes on YouTube. Probably not the one of me in the bath.

It was fun to get away from school in the middle of the day. I really should do it more often. I came across this woman (above) drawing a mural on the window of an office building for International Women's Day. I asked her if I could take some pictures while she worked, and she agreed.

Speaking of International Women's Day, The New York Times has published an interesting feature -- a set of obituaries for famous women who were ignored in its pages when they died. The list is remarkable -- Diane Arbus, Sylvia Plath, Charlotte Brontë, the Bollywood star Madhubala, the anti-lynching campaigner Ida B. Wells. It's an interesting way to acknowledge past weakness in their editorial judgment about who deserved a Times obituary. Check it out!

Sherbet Stripes

Olga and I found this stray mitten on our street a couple of weeks ago. There's always something sad and lonely about a lost mitten or glove. It seems to want its partner, doesn't it?

And then, just yesterday, I came across this photo I took almost exactly ten years ago in New York, in January 2008. Another sherbet-striped mitten, left to fend for itself!

Hang onto your gloves, people!

I went to the doctor yesterday to have my back checked out. As I suspected, they couldn't tell me much. They briefly tested my mobility and whether I had any tenderness between vertebrae, and then gave me a letter so I could seek physical therapy through my private insurance, should I want to go that route. (I don't. It's not that bad.) I guess I'll just live with it. So it goes when you're fiftysomething!

The magazine archive people came to school yesterday and picked up several boxes of our old library magazines. They're coming today for the rest. I'll be very glad to get those things out of the library! We decided to keep our old Newsweeks, which date from 1941-1959 -- our students do units on World War II and the Cold War, and I thought we could incorporate the Newsweeks into those projects, showing contemporary reporting about the events of the day within the cultural context of magazine advertisements, feature articles, etc. The teachers were enthusiastic about that idea, so we'll see. Those Newsweeks seem like such a precious resource.

The Mysterious Angelfish Book

These two groovy-looking restaurants in Notting Hill were owned by the son of a very famous designer -- who also owned a deli where Dave and I used to eat. All three of those places are now closed, and I'll be darned if I can find anything online that explains why. Surely there must have been some press coverage? It's very strange.

It's been a busy week so far. For one thing, I finally completed our school library's yearbook archive project, securing undamaged copies of all the yearbooks that I had to replace because a certain someone cut pictures out of our previous books. I mentioned earlier that this person was well-meaning, and someone asked how that could possibly be. (A reasonable question.) Well, he cut the photos out to make birthday collages for some students and staff members -- he's been doing it a while and I guess no one thought to ask where the pictures were coming from!

I've also arranged for the collection of boxes of old (as in, decades old) magazines we're donating to a London archive. They're supposed to be collected this morning -- at least, the first batch -- but it will be interesting because the school's lift is out of order and we'll have to schlep the boxes down the front steps. We'll see how that goes.

To make things even more interesting, my recent root canal is still giving me trouble. The tooth is bothering me again. I made an appointment to go back to the dentist in a week (the soonest he can see me) to have it checked out. And I'm finally following up with a doctor about my recent back pain.

As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, "It just goes ta show ya. It's always somethin.'"

Remember the recording I posted a few days ago of me reading as a 7-year-old? Well, it got me thinking about learning to read as an early elementary school student. In addition to the ubiquitous Weekly Reader, I remembered having a textbook with angelfish on the cover. What this book was called I could not remember, and I hadn't seen it since first or second grade, but I took to the Internet to try to find a picture. And voila! I'm pretty sure this is it -- "Each and All," from 1971. It's incredible, the things that can be found online.

I don't remember anything from the inside of the book. But I loved that cover with the fish!

Anyway, I'm off to work early this morning -- I switched shifts with my coworker in order to go to the doctor this afternoon. So I gotta get the dog walked!

Look, and Look Out!

Today, just a few recent photos from my iPhone!

First, Olga pauses next to some graffiti in Billy Fury Way on Sunday morning. She's never very happy about pausing for a picture, but she tolerates me.

In case you doubted me about the rapidity of the snow melt, here's our back garden on Sunday morning, after I propped up the flattened daffodils. The tiny bit of snow in the flower bed in the foreground lasted only an hour or so beyond when I took the photo. Miraculously, it looks like all our plants survived, though I guess we won't know for sure until things start growing again.

This was a definite casualty of the storm -- a car parked not far from our flat, on the opposite side of the street from an intersection. Clearly someone slid right through the snowy intersection and crashed into it! I first noticed it Friday morning, I think. And it's still there, maybe waiting for a tow truck or insurance adjusters or something.

Yesterday I found this graffiti snake playfully painted onto some steps over the tube tracks. I wish I'd seen it when it was new!

And finally, one of my commenters mentioned not too long ago a book from 1927 called "Freddy Goes to Florida," about a group of American farm animals that travel south for the winter. Even with my personal roots in the Sunshine State, I'd never heard of it. Imagine my surprise when I found a copy in our library conference room! I'm definitely going to give it a read!

Kong of the Hill

And voila! Just like that, the snow is gone. Our garden is completely green once again, and the plants don't seem too battered, though I did spend part of yesterday morning staking up the remaining daffodils. They'd all been flattened. Dave said they'd probably resurrect themselves, but I figured I'd help them along. With no freezing nights in the forecast, I even moved the fig and our geraniums back outside.

Dave and I went to Sir John Soane's Museum yesterday. It's the home of Soane, a famous Victorian architect, on Lincoln's Inn Fields, and it apparently hasn't changed since Soane's death 180 years ago. It's definitely a quirky place. The rooms are tiny, the hallways narrow, and yet the place is crammed with paintings and sculptures and architectural drawings, stained glass, period furniture and other relics of Victorian life. The art includes a Turner, some Canalettos and some Hogarths. There's even a huge Egyptian sarcophagus, of pharoah Seti I. I've long heard that this is a remarkable museum so it was fun to see it first-hand.

I was most impressed because Soane, who tore down the original houses at that address before building his own, used skylights extensively. He was obviously serious about taking advantage of natural light. He'd be amazed with today's window-wall technology!

Also, he and his wife clearly loved their dog, Fanny. They had her portrait painted and even erected a tall marble monument to her in one of their courtyards. (I suggested to Dave that we do that for Olga, though admittedly it's a bit premature.) Apparently the Soanes weren't so crazy about their own sons, who declined to take up their father's interest in architecture -- one eventually caused a rift by criticizing Dad publicly. Scandal!

Unfortunately, photography wasn't allowed in the museum. So you'll have to settle for a picture of a bench dedicated to British women's and children's advocate Margaret MacDonald, located in the park outside.

After we came home, I took Olga to Fortune Green and the cemetery for a run. We discovered a large, mysterious pile of dirt on Fortune Green, and I put her Kong on top. Eventually I was able to get a photo as she scrambled up to retrieve it, but it took several tries -- she usually got to the top of the pile before I was ready to take the picture. When the Kong is involved, she moves fast!

Scanning the list of Oscar winners, I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I haven't seen "The Shape of Water," so I can't opine on that one, but I loved Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell in "Three Billboards" and I'm sure Allison Janney and Gary Oldman deserve their awards because they're always great. I think it's a shame "Call Me By Your Name" didn't win any higher recognition than best adapted screenplay, given how much that movie affected me, but it's better than nothing.

Olga's Winter Wonderland

Olga and I went on our West Heath walk yesterday. The streets were slushy, the gutters full of wintry residue the color and consistency of a Coca-Cola Slurpee, but the Heath itself was pristine and white and snowier than I ever remember seeing it before.

It made for a great walk, because although the snow was rapidly melting the ground was still pretty firm, meaning it wasn't boggy.

I only fell on my behind once, while gingerly stepping down a steep incline. Oh well.

Olga, on the other hand, was as sure-footed as ever, chasing the Kong or running after other dogs or sledding children or whatever else struck her fancy. (We didn't see any squirrels. They're still curled up somewhere warm and out of sight.)

The pond where Olga wades was completely iced over, even around the new young shoots of iris that grow up every spring. They'll be fine, I'm sure.

And beneath the snow, the gorse was still persistently blooming.

Speaking of blooming, I harvested some of our poor battered daffodils and brought them into the kitchen, where they look as good as new on the windowsill -- even one that I inadvertently stepped on and squashed flat! I've pulled others from beneath the snow and tied them upright in the garden, and they still look fine. Let it never be said that a daffodil is a delicate flower.

This morning the garden is almost clear of snow and the patio is back to normal.  Amazing how quickly it all vanished!