And so it goes…
I find my brain entirely shuts down when ill. I don’t feel like I have the same processing power at all. Of course, I feel guilty for any of these posts that fail to scintillate, especially when on a journey like this where I feel that if I was a real writer, I would be capturing the moments with the flair of a Graham Greene where instead I am producing flat JK Rowling tracts.
It doesn’t help that I read letters to the Guardian from 16 year olds and feel inadequate in the face of their competent constructions.
Anyhow, enough of me and lack of self-esteem while ill (an article in the same Guardian admonished our therapy culture where we bemoan a low self-opinion as the source of all wickednesses). (I almost coined a word there: adminishment, the act of criticising through interminable application of secretarial skills). I am also depressed by articles on the Church and AIDS and more.
dr_nic and delve: You are hereby strongly encouraged to get ahold of Chaps magazine if you have not already done so. You two raffish lads will no doubt approve of their campaign to stamp out the anodyne of the urban by visiting Maccas and Pizza Hut to order a pousse café (apparently the yolk of one fresh egg, 1⁄6 gill of yellow chartreuse and a 1⁄6 gill of eau de vie de danzig, but you knew that). “The whole point about Chapism,” says founder Gustav Temple, “is to be elegant and sophisticated in spite of being impecuniously situated.” Long live the vim of the flaneur, dahling.
So… the V&A and the Tate Modern. V&A was as expected. Most of it is really not my period, with the British Galleries being 1500 – 1900 (exactly the bits I’m not interested in actually). I wanted to see the Medieval Treasury, which was much more Christian than I was expecting (in hindsight, obvious). I went to see the Dress section, partly because pollyanna_n wanted to and partly because I felt like I’d be letting frou_frou down terribly if I didn’t. I was very disappointed: no history of dress really, a few outfits from each decade from the 1840s, cases with fans and gloves and wedding gear, but no explanations of styles or shifts in culture that would aid someone like me (who isn’t into it) to understand what I was viewing. It seemed very different from the historical museums which I felt gave me more context (Viking pin, found in location x, suggests trade occurred la la). The Textiles bit upstairs was more impressive, and I was fascinated by the Boar Hunt and Falconry Tapestries, some of which are very old, mainly because I’m interested in depictions of secular life, although I prefer regular folk to nobility.
I don’t think I’ve adequately raved about the brilliance of some of the historical museums I’ve been to and some of the reconstructions of scenes from everyday medieval life. I think it was the Museum of History in Riga that had utterly superb wooden medieval looms set up with weaving on them and stones hanging down so I could really see exactly how it was working.
Found the V&A collection of arms and armour despite it not being marked on the map (it’s room 90 on the second floor) and oohed and ahhed at the swords and crossbows (as you do). Despite what I say about my ‘period’ I am a big fan of the 16th century cup-hilt Spanish rapier. In fact, the one they had in the case had Toledo stamped on the blade and looked remarkably like the original from which Marto is making the replicas.
Talking about Spain reminds me: while in Camden Market, found out that New Rock has a much wider range of intensely sexy boots than previously suspected and it’s a good thing I didn’t have money as I probably don’t actually need knee high purple and black chunky boots with shiny steel panels and a 5‑inch platform, even if they were only £70.
Back to V&A: the ironwork gallery was amazingly fabulous. Simple black curlicues of spiral and leaf. The was an incredible enormous amethyst necklace given to a married woman (Frances Anne, Marchioness Londonderry) by Tsar Alexander I who was besotted, but more so were her fabulous words about it: “I wonder that we survived the incident without guilt”.
At the Ashmolean, I was stunned by some of the ancient tablets with cuneiform.
Then there was the Tate Modern. Loved Cornelia Parker’s Coid Dark Matter: Exploded View, and the way the partially destroyed materials evoked the temporality of obsolescence at the same time as freezing and preserving them in their decay. I liked the decaying still life for similar reasons. I loved the curio cabinets filled with the flotsam of the Thames, and the way you can pore over the drawers, revealing bottle caps and bones. (Reminds me of Bruce Dawe’s poem about aging, is it called Homecoming? Hate being sick and not remembering things). I liked the way the Tate is organised. I like the way Object/etc morphs into Landscape. I liked that I was able to recognise more works without looking at labels this time, not just the obvious ones like the Picasso and the Lichtenstein. I like the Twombly works again, and I recognised which works were from fluxus without them necessarily being labelled as such. There were other newer works I liked but I can’t remember names right now which annoys me. I found JAPANESE CYBERGIRL’s work compelling and mystical. I was struck by how little homoerotic material there was. Rodin’s The Kiss is beautiful and haunting. It’s bizarre seeing The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelor’s Even as a full scale work. It’s bizarre knowing you’re looking at a replica. It’s bizarre that the ‘real’ Duchamp works that are there are the cabinets he made of miniature reproductions of his larger works and that that’s the second time I’ve seen those since some of them were on display at Museum Moderner Kunst in Vienna too, as part of the Fluxus/Pop Art exhibition.
Could easily have spent many more hours there. I love the fact that English museums are free.
Did I get around to mentioning that on Sunday, pollyanna_n and I went to Chartwell, Churchill’s estate? Don’t think I did. That was great too. Walking around Churchill’s library and study and being able to check out his bookshelves the way you check out anyone’s bookshelves was amazing. Also, the experience was an interesting counter-balance to the myriad Eastern European museums about World War II and the various occupations. The most striking image is one of Churchill sitting with Roosevelt and Stalin. Stalin is gazing smugly at the camera. I think the date is around 1943. The Baltics have already been invaded. Stalin presumably remembers that he made a secret non-agression pact with Hitler, even if the others don’t know it yet. Stalin has already expressed interest in the Czech region and even had explicit discussions about how things might be divided up. What is he thinking in this picture? What did he say? Did Churchill really do everything he might have to stop the occupations of nations by the Soviet Army? Or was it amazing he did and saw what he did, recognising the threat before others? Was that phrase ‘iron curtain’ that he coined actually more of a hindrance to the cause, suggesting as it did that the new border was immovable and the countries behind it hidden from view and help? Would things have gone differently if he hadn’t needed to start persuasion anew with Truman or if he’d kept power himself?
Anyhow, Churchill as journalist and statesman, speechmaker and thinker is a challenging figure for me, leader of the anti-Hitler brigade but at the same time a man who said “Victory at all costs”. Why is one invader less evil than another? The same question recurs now, of course: Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait or possession of WMD is somehow more reprehensible than Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestine because it suits the PTB politically to turn a blind eye. Meanwhile, people die and walls are built.
And apologies to delve and deepskin to whom I owe actually intellectual responses but can’t dredge them from wherever such responses dwell.